Refuge
by Donteatacowman
Summary: After years on Homeworld, Lars sees an old friend.
1. Chapter 1

Lars couldn't believe his eyes.

The figure before him, face and shining gem being projected on every surface and holo-surface in sight, boomed out in a voice Lars hadn't ever heard before. Maybe once. Deeper than expected, looking older than he should.

But no one who knew him, no matter how long ago, could glance at the televised message without recognizing Steven Universe.

"I am proud to announce," the voice echoed around Homeworld's towering buildings. "That after years of diplomacy talks and ship construction, and thanks to the generous cooperation of your Diamonds, the Earth is officially open for immigration! No longer will Homeworld discard or shatter gems. The Earth is at long last an official Homeworld colony for anyone who feels unwelcome in Homeworld, or even those who want to explore the Earth's natural beauty for themselves!"

Steven looked young–in his early twenties?–but there was a maturity ringing in his voice. Was that natural, or the product of this apparently much-rehearsed announcement?

The off-colors weren't exactly tuned in to Homeworld pop culture, but the news of Steven's new initiative had rippled through every gem community on the planet, and probably gems off the planet too. Lars had finagled his way to being a member of this audience, scrimped and saved and paid scalper's fees, all for the privilege of looking at his friend from a good mile or so away. Pushing and shoving his way as far to the front as he could go, and screaming and waving on the off chance that Steven had developed some kinda super-hearing in the last couple years, seemed to have no effect but to annoy the gems around him.

Which sucked, because this was an awesome-looking group. Any other day, Lars would have been marveling at how prestigious sapphires and holly blue agates were rubbing shoulders with fusions and off-colors, as if they really were as equal as Steven was loudly saying they were.

"Fusion of every kind, temporary or permanent, is celebrated on Earth. No matter your color, your cut, your gem, we'll welcome you happily as an equal! Earth has been a refuge for so many gems who only wanted to live as themselves, and now we're inviting anybody and everybody!

"Ships will travel between our star systems free of cost. If you change your mind about emigration, Homeworld is only a short ship ride away! While we work on establishing our revolutionary new community on Earth, we welcome everyone to participate and communicate with their friends on Homeworld." For the first time in the well-rehearsed, joyfully delivered speech, Steven's voice held a hitch of emotion.

"For too long our worlds have fought. Too long have we been separated by more than the distance between our planets.

"Years ago, a close friend of mine, a human, became stranded on your planet–alone and afraid. Despite the danger to themselves, some generous off-colors took him in as one of their own." A pause in the speech. Steven wasn't looking at the camera anymore. He knew Lars was here. Of course he did. Why wasn't he trying to find him?

"I tried to send him provisions, but… we didn't have a way to communicate." Lars had guessed that Lion had somehow become missing soon after his disappearance, but this was a sort of confirmation. Lars nodded to himself decisively. Not that he would have ever blamed Steven for leaving him here. Not after what Steven had done the last day they'd spoken, that first time they'd escaped the Diamonds.

"Humans have different needs than gems. They have needs that… Homeworld can't provide. And if their form gets broken… they can't come back."

Lars's eyes popped open at the weird tangent this speech had gone on. Steven knew that wasn't true! He'd healed Lars himself! Brought him back from the dead! He knew Lars didn't need to eat or sleep or drink anymore. How else could he have survived this long?!

Though… they hadn't spoken. They hadn't been able to talk at all since that first day. These past years (how long had it been, exactly? How should Lars know?), had Steven really thought…?

Steven, onscreen, cleared his throat. Brushing away emotion to deal with another time. A watery smile appeared on his face, though it clear brighter and more sincere every second. The screen split–half Steven's face, half a satellite map of… what was that desert's name again? The Sahara? "That's why I'm so pleased to announce the official opening of the Barriga Memorial Interstellar Refugee Center!"

Any other words Steven said–which seemed to be a repetition of 'a place where anyone from anywhere can live as they choose' or something like it–were drowned out by sudden noise. Clapping which swelled into a deafening rumble of screams and cheers and applause. Apparently the recording was live–after a few seconds, Steven realized he wasn't audible anymore and shut his mouth, raising a hand for a triumphant wave and gesture at some kind of building blueprints that were pulled up alongside the map.

Lars's mouth went dry. There was no space. There was only countless gem's bodies crushed between him and the speaker.

He had to get to Steven. Now.

But how?


	2. Chapter 2

When, after opening ceremonies that dragged on forever, involving some kind of weird dance between Steven and some Earth gems and the Diamonds and who knows what else (Lars stopped listening, focusing on his attempts to squeeze ahead whenever there an inch of space opened up in the crowd), the ship doors opened, it was cacophony. Lars thought he remembered enough about Earth to compare it to a midnight release party-sure, everyone would have the __chance__ to get what they want, but everyone wanted to be among the first to experience it. The Diamonds had obviously been expecting a big turnout, but it would have been impossible to physically accommodate everyone who wanted to be involved in this historic moment.

"Steven," Lars ground out as loudly as he could when he passed a decorated platform, but just then, the nearest ship's doors slid open with a clang. This was probably the tenth or twelfth in a long line of Earth-bound public access ships. Again, the segregation that was so normal in Homeworld's society seemed to have disappeared, at least from what the event organizers could control. Nervous common gems still parted to let more prestigious gems go by. Lars, of course, was not nearly lucky enough to be among the second group. He was an oddball by both gem _ _and__ Earth standards.

It wasn't like he'd planned on up and leaving his home-and by now, that was what Homeworld __was__ to Lars, hostile as it was-but going against the tide of rushing bodies would probably be impossible by now. Lars was carried along with the crowd, sputtering, and when he looked around, realized that he was crammed like cargo into a huge ship. It looked like it was built to be both cost-effective and comfortable for travelers, but it was also probably supposed to accommodate less than half the bodies already onboard.

An electric chime rang out, and the doors slid shut.

This was good! This was probably good! This was definitely not a reason to break out into a cold sweat and have his heart beat so fast he could almost convince himself it sounded alive. But the space was so cramped, so small, and there was so little air.

The ship probably offered some kind of warning for passengers, a polite 'please strap in, liftoff is commencing' or whatever, but it was impossible to hear over the hubub. And then-

Lars felt himself slam against the huge Amethyst behind him. The pressure on his chest made him certain that he was having whatever passed for a panic attack for a pink zombie, or that he was finally being suffocated to death somehow, but the gems in front of him slammed into him, too. It was… gravity. They must be taking off. Lars was grabbed by a vivid memory of a ride at the theme park in Beach City, the one shaped like a UFO that slammed you against a wall as the floor dropped out from you.

Surely the pulling sensation was as agonizing for the other gems, but the thrilled excitement in the air didn't dissipate until, one by one, the gems' forms poofed from the g-forces.

Lars finally got the breathing room he'd wanted. Except now he had a good hundred space rocks being shoved against his face and his body as he was thrown against the far wall of the spaceship.

 _ _Seatbelts, Steven,__ he resolved would be the first words out of his mouth when he spoke with the boy again. __Weren't you the one who always put on his seatbelt?! How the heck did you forget seatbelts?!__

Lars would have sworn that the Earth was supposed to be super far away. Like a week's journey or something. But it felt like only ten minutes til he was being tumbled around and slowly got control of his limbs again, spitting a pebble-sized nephrite out of his mouth. " _ _Aaaahaha__! Sorry, we haven't even been introduced," he said to the rock, shakily running his hand through his hair and placing the gem on top of a rutile by his feet.

He was right about the polite computer voice that seemed ubiquitous in all public transportation, though. As the ship slowed and stopped, with a gentle bump, a soft voice told Lars, "Thank you for using the Homeworld public transit system. Welcome to... A, on planet, H. Please watch your step as you exit the vehicle. Thank you for using the Homeworld public transit system…"

Grumbling, Lars gathered up an armful of gems. Then, on second thought, pulled his tattered shirt out and used it like a giant pocket, trying to get as many gems out of the ship in a single trip as possible. Like, there was no reason to leave them all in there, right?

Outside the ship was a vast expanse of sand, tinted a deep navy blue from the night sky above them. Lars knelt and set down his sparkling burden, slowly standing-and then rushing back in the ship for a second trip when he heard the ship's doors chime their intention to close soon.

By the time the doors were shut, Lars was flat on the desert sand, surrounded by countless silent gems and groaning. He hadn't expected any of that, or the headrush that followed his unexpected journey. He rubbed his eyes, staring up at the moon.

The moon.

Earth's moon.

It hadn't really sunk in __where__ he was until that moment.

Lars started laughing, his palms pressed into his face and on his scar, leaving just enough cracks between his fingers to actually see the moon itself. Even that got blurry within seconds. Lars realized, still laughing hysterically, that he was crying.


	3. Chapter 3

Lars got outta there as soon as the gems around him started to reform. He wasn't so great with crowds back on Earth (wait, no, he was on Earth again, he couldn't say that anymore!), but spending most of his time on Homeworld as a fugitive really didn't help his social anxiety. The golden sun ( _ _Earth's single yellow sun!__ ) was peaking out above the sand dunes, letting Lars see the structure they'd landed at. Ships kept coming and going, and a few gems were already wandering about to explore the new planet. Seeing Fluorite from a distance, Lars waved and shouted happily, but he was too far off. He soon lost her again in the quickly-reforming crowds.

Avoiding as many gems as possible, Lars climbed to the towering new structure. A banner on the front was filled with cheesy party balloons and streamers and a Comic Sans "WELCOME GEM FRIENDS," which Lars guessed let the new refugees know what they were in for, having Steven as their ambassador.

The place seemed entirely unmanned, though. Like all the actual political folks were still on Homeworld trying to sell the place, and letting visitors fend for themselves. Sure, there were signs and more of the robot gem lady's voice offering help to anyone needing it, but no sign of Steven. Or any other humans. Which was probably a good thing, actually. Ease the gems into human interaction. Most humans didn't have an indestructible zombie body.

Lars tried the public communication ports, but they seemed to only be connected to Homeworld and other parts of the Refugee Center. There's nothing like frustrating technology to ruin your mood, Lars decided by the time he'd finished screaming at the piece of junk every variation on "SIRI, CALL BEACH CITY" and "TALK TO OPERATOR" and "GIVE ME DIRECTIONS TO BEACH CITY" that he could think of. He swore he could figure the crappy thing out if he'd had more time before a zircon walked by, giving him the stinkeye and making him decide to give up the endeavor.

Ok. All wasn't lost. "Right, so…" Lars wracked his brain, trying to remember his Earth geography. "Uh… The moon rose over the ocean on Beach City, and it rose in the east, so we must have been… facing…" He held his hands in the air as he sat on a dune in the blazing sun, pink fists trying to symbolise the moon and his hometown respectively. "East. Which is… that way. But, wait, we were by the Atlantic, so… yeah! Okay. Ocean's here. Beach City's here." He shook a fist emphatically.

"And the Sahara was in… Asi-No, Africa. And Africa's… here. So to get to Beach City, I gotta go west. Toward the setting sun. And hopefully run into some humans who can give me actual directions," he said to himself decisively, standing up. "Or a boat ride. Boat ride would be good. I'm not sure I can swim all that way." Like, sure, he couldn't __drown__ , but he hadn't actually been around bodies of water after he died. Maybe he'd sink like a stone. He snorted to himself. Yeah, which would make him an actual gem. He __wished__.

Maybe being back on Earth, he should take back that sentiment. But spending however-many years in a gem society, even among the outcasts like the off-colors, he was an outsider. A weirdo. And no matter what planet he was on, he always would be.

Lars could feel his face getting redder and blamed it on sunburn.

* * *

About a month into his refreshing stroll (as he'd decided to wryly call it), Lars discovered that he could walk on salt water.

Just like… some guy whose name he forgot.

Oh yeah, the Flash.

* * *

He took a break now and again, mostly to do some odd jobs as a migrant worker. Of course all the humans pointed out his skin, like he'd just woken up pink this morning and hadn't realized so __thank you very much for your concern, buddy, let me change my skin back to default human setting right away__. Some of the people he met didn't care. Some people he met cared a __lot__.

Sorta like gem society too, he guessed.

On the upside, those odd jobs meant he could afford actual clothing instead of gross rags with just enough of a skull visible to make him look like a punk rock wannabe. Though if he didn't change every so often based on where he was, the clothes got him weird looks too. Lars had no idea if clothes styles had changed enough to make his taste old-fashioned, or if the countries he stopped in just didn't happen to be fond of pro-wrestling t-shirts.

After a couple weeks of walking, Lars knew he could probably have gotten to Beach City faster. Hitched a ride with someone, or saved up enough for plane tickets, or stowed away on a boat.

But he'd been away from the Earth so long, and even when he was living here, he hadn't seen nearly this much of it before. And it wasn't like he got tired or sore from all the walking.

So sue him for enjoying the view.

* * *

Once he reached the coastline, around three months into his little walk, it didn't take long to find Beach City. He'd thought a lot about what to do when he got there. Talking to Steven was technically priority numero uno, but… His mom and dad and Sadie and everyone else in the town. The years on Homeworld had numbed him to idle thoughts of what they were up to, but now that he had the chance to find out for real, he wasn't going to pass it up for a second.

The place wasn't deserted by a long shot. But it wasn't as busy as he'd remembered it. Houses of loved ones were empty, or occupied by strangers (as he'd embarrassingly found out when he got an elderly lady instead of his mom answering the door. He'd been gone a long time but _ _not that long.__ And no amount of time passing would make his mother suddenly turn Korean).

But of course Steven's place was still standing. Still shaped like a giant rock woman. Still on the beach, right where he'd left it.

Lars climbed the stairs, trying to force the nervous trepidation running circles in his mind to just shut up for a second. Think about nothing. Just the stairs he was climbing and the wooden screen door and the sound of his knocking.

A woman answered the door. Familiar, but not __too__ familiar.

"Oh, uh." Lars cracked a grin, shoving his hands in the pockets of his new tin-foil-looking jeans (kids these days and their weird fashion trends). "Hey. Pearl, right? Is Steven in?"

Pearl's face was blank before a polite smile graced it. It looked strained around the corners, and her voice was a little too loud. "Oh! Oh, HI, LARS! SO NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN!"

She stayed standing at the door, frozen and looking expectant, for a good twenty seconds or so. Lars stared at her.

Pearl opened the door a little wider after a period of time that she apparently deemed was enough of a polite wait. She turned her back on a confused Lars as she hollered peevishly further into the house.

"GARNET? Garnet, can you come here? Because I'm approximately ninety-nine percent sure that this isn't how humans are supposed to work!"


	4. Chapter 4

"Thanks for coming, you guys. I know it's not great timing, with you all moving into the Refugee Center, but this was… This is important to me."

"Not a problem!" "No issue!"

"We're… just glad that we can… help. What… did you need?"

"Right. Um. This is kinda heavy stuff, are you sure you don't want to just talk first? Like, how have you been the last twenty years? It's amazing that you got past the robonoids all that time!"

"Are you kidding me?! Every day was a fight for our gems! I thought they were gonna break us! It's unbelievable, how fusions like me can walk around out in the open like this here! I don't know how you pulled this off, but-"

"We're… all in your debt… Steven. All us off-colors… and all seven… of the gems… that make up me."

"Seven?! Wha-ha-hat?! When did that happen?"

"She added a new gem to her fusion!" "She found somebody!" "Seven years ago, now?" "I think it's been seven years." "We get along well." "We're all a great team!"

"But Steven, come on, I think we're all a little worried. You should be working to keep the peace at the Center! Who __knows__ what fights are gonna break out…"

"Yes… Why __did…__ you call us here…?"

A deep breath to steady himself. "It's about-yeah. Remember Lars? The human with me when we all first met?"

"Of course!" "No way we'd forget!" "What about him?" "What'd you need to know?"

"I just…" A pause. He was fidgeting. "I need to know. What was he like the last time you saw him? Did he say anything? I know this is selfish, but… did he mention __me__?"

"I'm pretty sure he did? It's been a little while. He said something about finding you, I think?"

"That's right." "We split up a while ago." "Don't remember exactly when." "He wanted to talk to you!" "He wondered where you'd been all that time."

"I think…" A smile was audible in her steady voice. "He really… missed you."

"Right. Right. But, like. Did he say anything special? Anything important? Did he say what he planned to __do__ when he left? How he… planned to go?"

Silence. Confused on one part of the conversation, guilty and concerned on the other.

"Okay," was the eventual answer he gave to himself in lieu of any other. "I see. Uhm." A sniff. "Thanks for coming out here, guys. I should let you get more settled in."

"Why are you so sad?" "What's wrong?" "I'm sure Lars is fine!" "We can look for him for you!"

"No, guys. You haven't been around humans very long, but it-it doesn't work like that. You'll-I'm sorry. This is stuff you guys need to know, but…" His voice cracks. "I can't teach you about it right now."

"I'm… sorry... we couldn't help… Steven." A voice heavy with confused grief, sadness without knowing what the sadness was for.

"It's not your fault, guys. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'd better, I'd better go. I have to call Blue Diamond and tell her how things are going down here. But, uh." Another sniff.

A voice unused to bravery responds, trying to encourage. "It's okay, Steven. You'll be alright."

Retreating footsteps. The silence is one of absolute confusion.

"Oh!"

"Padparadscha!" "You've been quiet." "What do you see?"

"How awful! Steven is going to come here, thinking the human Lars's form was destroyed on Homeworld! What a tragic misunderstanding!"

"Oh." " __Oh__."

"Oh… dear."

"Yikes. Uh, has anybody- Anybody got a phone?"


	5. Chapter 5

Pearl was pacing back and forth in front of the couch that Lars was reluctantly splayed out on.

"This doesn't make any sense," she was muttering to herself, steadily retracing her steps back and forth like she was intent to wear a hole in the rug. "Human lifespans are supposed to run out in a matter of weeks if not days if not exposed to enough food and fresh water. __Granted__ , the oxygen content of the atmosphere on Homeworld is more than sufficient to sustain organic life, but-you haven't had to eat or drink or defecate over the past twenty years?" she directed the question sharply to Lars.

Lars almost choked, then sputtered and started waving his hands. "Do __none__ of you gems understand personal space?! I told you, Steven-"

But Pearl was disregarding him again, apparently wrapped up in atmospheric content calculations and reviewing what she knew of human physiology. The scholarly composure was made all the more out of place by an amethyst flopped over upside-down beside Lars on the couch. Amethyst's foot thudded against the back of the seat with no discernable rhythm or pattern. Across from them, a garnet crossed her arms. Lars couldn't tell because of her reflective visor, but he got the feeling he was being stared at.

Lars ran a hand through his hair, letting it puff up in pastel curls in front of his eyes.

"Lars." He jerked up his head when Garnet said his name. She offered him a little rectangular piece of glass. A coaster? He reached out to take it as she said, "Why don't you try calling Steven on the phone?"

"Sure," he said as he grabbed the coaster. "Do you have his number?"

"Oh, brilliant idea, Garnet!" Pearl said with a clap of her hands. "It might be a little old-fashioned, Lars, but I'm sure you can figure out how to work it! Where's your cell chip?"

The glass seemed to light up on its own. Was this thing supposed to be a cell phone? "My whah?"

"Here, use mine," Amethyst said, flicking a little piece of plastic to Lars. He fumbled and almost dropped it.

Lars glanced up at the gems, who were all staring at him expectedly. "Uh…" He took the chip and smushed it against the glass. The lights onscreen made an odd pattern. Amethyst snatched back the chip and said loudly to the phone, "Call Steven!"

More odd lights and a metallic tune, somehow echoing out of the piece of glass. It sounded familiar, like something Lars might have heard in passing on Homeworld.

And then it stopped as a voice answered. "Hello? Amethyst?"

"Heyyyy!" Amethyst answered gleefully. "Stevonnie! What're you doing fused together?" Lars stared intently at the phone, trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Stevonnie wasn't a gem name he'd heard of, and if anything it sounded more like Steven and Connie's names mashed together.

"I'm doing a presentation to the new gems at the Center! An educational thing about fusion. I'd have invited you guys, but it's nothing you don't know alrea-"

"In the __Sahara__?!" Lars interrupted with a shriek.

Stevonnie on the other line paused before asking, "Amethyst, who's tha-"

Lars groaned loudly, pulling his hand down his face. "Okay! Awesome! So Steven's back in the Sahara! Who'd have __guessed__!" He stood up, huffing. "So I guess it was nice meeting you guys again! Catching up on old times or whatever! Thanks for letting me use your space-glass phone or whatever the crap, Amethyst! Maybe I'll see you in another six months after I walk back and forth over the whole __freakin' Atlantic Ocean__ again! Stevonnie, nice chatting, tell Steven to expect me there in another three months. Maybe __two months__ if I run! Gaaaaaah!" As he yelled, Lars headed to the door and slammed it behind him. "Great! I loved having the sun in my eyes all afternoon. Guess now I'll experience the joys of getting blinded in the morning instead!"

He was breathing heavily, something that didn't happen when he was actually physically exerted, so he knew he was upset. He groaned again, plopping down on the bottom step that rested against the sandy beach, then he folded his body up like a crumpled ball.

It was a good half hour before anyone came after him. Maybe they'd taken Lars at his word that he was already sprinting across the Atlantic. Maybe they just weren't in the mood to comfort a sulking forever-teenager. At any rate, it was enough time that it surprised Lars to feel a heavy hand on his shoulder out of nowhere.

"Lars," Garnet's voice said sternly. At least, he assumed it was stern. "We need to have a talk."

Lars made no answers or protest, but stood up shakily, letting himself be guided back into the house and through some magic gem-door. He didn't think he could get surprised anymore after what he'd been through lately, but life always had something in store for him to make his jaw drop in horror.

"What… __is__ all this?" he asked, stepping forward and reaching out a hand.

"A place that we can be alone," Garnet answered, following him as the door behind them sealed and vanished. "We need to figure out what's happened to you. Stevonnie's worried. Steven was worried too. He thought you'd died."

"No, I mean…" Lars could feel his heart still in his chest as his finger brushed against one of the bubbles. A fist wrapped around his hand-Garnet's, much stronger than she looked, and she __never__ looked weak. He didn't try to draw his hand back, though. "This Ruby. She's __cracked__." He looked back at Garnet, trying not to let his emotions show on his face and failing. "What happened to her?"

Garnet faced him silently before shaking her head, a small smile on her face. She didn't seem to have been expecting that question. "Don't worry about it."

"No, I-" How long had it been since Lars had seen Rhodonite? A few months, right? __Anything__ could happen in that time. "She wasn't part of a fusion, was she?"

For once, Garnet seemed to be at a loss for words instead of intentionally silent. "I…"

"You didn't find her with a pearl?!" Lars whipped his head around, glaring. "You didn't, right?!"

"Calm down, Lars," Garnet said, pulling the boy back from the bubbles floating in the air before him. "Take a breath. __No__. This Ruby was broken a long time ago. You never knew her."

Lars obeyed, sucking in air and sinking to the floor. Garnet crouched beside him and continued, "I didn't think you knew __any__ gems."

"Are you kidding?" Lars grit his teeth. "I only spent the last however-many years stuck on Homeworld. Probably longer than I ever spent on Earth. I __think__ I picked a few things about gem society up." He glanced up, trying to see Garnet's eyes through her shades. "What year is it, anyway?"

"Twenty thirty-seven," she said, sitting cross-legged beside him. "My turn for a question. How are you alive?"

"Yeesh, delve right into the big stuff," Lars muttered under his breath. "Didn't Steven tell you? Like, I'm sure he __remembers__."

"No." Garnet didn't seem to be fond of long answers.

"Oh. Uh. Long story short. He was on trial with the Diamonds and we escaped, but there was a bunch of crap that kept happening and I kinda got myself exploded. I woke up next to Steven and he said I'd died." Lars shook out his pink hair. "That's when __this__ happened, by the way. Steven said it was probably what happened to his mom's pet lion? And he went back to earth through my hair, it was weird."

"...Ah."

"That's it?" Lars glowered. "I give you my whole sad zombie backstory and all you say is 'ah'?"

"Lars." Garnet didn't seem as concerned as her words would imply. "Steven didn't tell us about healing you. He didn't know you could survive without food and water. For twenty years, he's been carrying the guilt of being responsible for your death."

"Ugh! That stupid-Steven!" Lars's fists clenched as he dropped his head onto a knee. "It's his fault I'm alive in the first place. I told you, __I__ got myself exploded. Not him. That… idiot…." Garnet didn't pipe in to defend him. Lars sighed, letting his fingers unclench. "I need to talk to him. Now."

"That's a good plan." Garnet stood, offering her left hand to Lars.

Lars took it unthinkingly, but felt something unusual as he pulled himself up. He looked down at her palm, then up to Garnet. Slowly he cracked a smile. "One of you is a ruby too. Just like Rhodonite."

Garnet softly smiled back, pulling Lars out a suddenly-appearing door and onto a round crystalline platform. "I'd love to meet her. Is she at the Barriga Memorial Interstellar Refugee Center too?"

"I'm not sure. Do you-do you think they'd be willing to rename that thing? It's kinda… embarrassing."

They were enveloped by a bright light, making a memory flicker in the back of Lars's mind. Was this a teleporter? Hadn't he used one before?

"I doubt it," Garnet answered while the light dissipated, revealing the now-familiar sprawling sands of the Sahara and the Memorial's silhouette against the horizon. "Let's ask."


	6. Chapter 6

It was just as crowded as Lars had left it, maybe even moreso. Unlike the presentation on Homeworld, though, Lars was able to get close enough to the stage for the current presentation to actually look Stevonnie in the eyes.

Stevonnie looked to be in their mid-thirties, curly dark hair cascading down their shoulders, face starting to wrinkle with smile lines. And that smile looked eerily familiar, though Lars didn't place it for a second. Was this a Universe? But, no, the timeline didn't work out for Steven to have had a kid, and Lars was pretty sure Steven didn't have any long-lost siblings or cousins.

"Do you remember Steven's friend Connie?" Garnet asked, talking over the speech from Stevonnie onstage.

Lars looked back at Garnet and frowned with a nod. "Sorta. His girlfriend, right? She didn't come to the Big Donut much."

Garnet chuckled. "That's them."

It took a little too long for Lars to get it, considering that he knew Stevonnie's name. "Holy-! Gems and humans can __fuse__?"

"Those two can, at least," Garnet answered over some murmurs.

Lars's shriek must have been too loud even for the crowded auditorium that Stevonnie was presenting in, because they looked over to Lars.

The eye contact gave him shivers.

Stevonnie, previously animated onstage with voice polished, stopped gesturing and talking. The auditorium was dead silent until gems around them started murmuring, confused at the speech's abrupt ending.

Eventually feeling the pressure to talk again, Stevonnie peeled their eyes away from Lars, still looking frozen on the spot. "Uhm. Right. I… I can take any questions you have. Some, some of you might be familiar with fusion already, but Homeworld society hasn't allowed this kind of education before, so… No question is a dumb one." Stevonnie was scrambling to pick back up with their presentation. Lars slunk behind Garnet, ashamed for causing such a distraction.

Over the next couple hours, Lars watched Stevonnie field all kinds of questions, from the mundane ("How does it feel to fuse with someone?" "How long do you stay fused?") to the ignorantly disrespectful ("So, wait, are you a __real__ gem when you're fused?" "What's your body __really__ look like?") with gracious dignity. As Stevonnie explained in response to the more thoughtlessly rude questions, they would rather be asked these now than have some poor fusion taking refuge on Earth to be harassed. And no gem in the audience seemed __intentionally__ spiteful.

Evidently, answering questions was a good enough distraction from seeing Lars. Stevonnie fielded them all like a champ and even had the composure to wrap up with a speech about respect, both for fusions __and__ for gems who hadn't learned that fusions made up of two or more separate gem types could exist.

But when Stevonnie excused themselves off the stage, their gaze immediately sought out Lars's. Lars had almost deluded himself into thinking that he wasn't nearly important enough to interfere with Steven's-Stevonnie's-busy schedule, but the intensity of their eye contact made him queasy.

Lars considered just bailing.

But with Garnet there, leaving was emphatically __not__ an option. She took Lars's wrist as soon as Stevonnie stepped off the stage, practically dragging Lars toward them without a word.

"H-hey," Lars said with a wave of his hand once he got close enough to Stevonnie for them to hear him.

"Lars," Stevonnie said softly.

"Right, yeah, been a while, right? For, uh, for me and Steven anyway. And me and Connie too? I'm not sure… I guess it's a good thing I'm meeting you like this instead of Steven, or there'd be crazy waterworks, huh?" Lars was talking quickly, avoiding looking at Stevonnie.

Stevonnie answered with an awestruck "You… You really haven't changed."

Lars laughed to himself, a noise that sounded like a cough because of how strained it was. "I'd say the same about you, but we haven't really met, so."

"You don't remember?" Lars looked up to see a twinkle in Stevonnie's wet eyes. "That one time at the Big Donut? You and Sadie gave me free donuts."

Lars __didn't__ remember, not at first. And when he finally did, he clapped a hand over his mouth. "You-Are you saying that was two __kids__ -And I-and you let me-" He howled, an "aaaaaaaaaugh" that went on for a good minute. "Forget it, I want crying Steven!" Lars shouted, face still buried in his hands. "Or better yet, undo the zombie thing and let me just die now!"

Stevonnie was laughing at him, which got louder as Lars felt their arms wrap around him in a tight squeeze.

"Gggh-I didn't mean 'try and suffocate me-'"

The laughs were turning into sobs, and Lars finally shut up and let himself be hugged. He looked for Garnet for help from the crying death-embrace, but she just gave him a thumbs-up.

"Lars," Stevonnie said again through tears. "Steven really, really, really, really really missed you."

"I'm getting that impression," Lars muttered through grit teeth. But he relented and added, "And I. Ireallymissedhimtoo."

The arms around him shifted, changing into something else, and Lars felt himself being seamlessly shoved in the middle of a Connie-Steven sandwich.

Right. Of __course__ this was Steven. Who else in Lars's life (afterlife?) could force him so easily into a group hug?


	7. Chapter 7

"When did you get so rich?" Lars said as he sunk into a soft high-backed chair.

"Interstellar diplomacy isn't a cheap thing," Connie said with a smile. She seemed to be holding her composure much better than Steven had, which in turn was getting both Steven and Lars to calm down.

"She's just being modest," Steven said in a scolding tone. "Connie's always been the moneymaker. She knows what a budget is!"

"A what?" Lars said.

"Exactly!"

"Though I don't think Lars came here to talk about fiscal reasoning," Connie interrupted, her hands crossed over themselves on her lap.

"Right!" Steven's eyes gleamed. "Lars, this is incredible! How did this happen? How are you __here__? You've gotta tell me everything!"

"No, no, no, hold on." Lars held up a pale pink hand. "Steven, I've been off-planet for twenty years. I have no idea what's going on here-apparently I don't even know how to use a __phone__ anymore. You tell __me__ everything first, okay?"

Steven looked crestfallen. "Honestly, there's nothing to tell-stuff hasn't really changed."

Lars lifted up his arms in a wide gesture to the office they were in at the Center. Photographs of Steven and Stevonnie with world leaders, a hovering piece of glass that might or might not have been a cell phone, a bookshelf full of titles like "Gems and Humans: The Buried History" and even one depressingly creased and aged printout of a candid of Lars and Sadie at the Big Donut. "Looks like you had __something__ going on!"

Steven sighed impatiently. "Okay, okay. I'll try to sum it up and you'll see how boring it's all been without you. And I guess… Connie should know what happened when you didn't come home."

* * *

The last time I saw you on Homeworld, Lars, you'd been fighting off one of those robonoids. And it was __amazing__! The way you climbed on top of them and screamed and, I mean, I knew you were afraid, but you weren't acting scared at all! You just kicked __butt__. But when that one robonoid exploded and you weren't moving anymore, I started crying. And it turns out that magic tears were one of my mom's powers. I didn't think I could do it, and I definitely didn't think it could help someone who was already… gone.

But then you woke up and you turned pink and you seemed like you were all better! And just like Lion, I was able to travel through my mom's dimension in your hair. So I got home and packed you some food and came back but you didn't want it. And that was the last time I saw you.

I got home and everybody was looking for me. I was so excited to see them, I… forgot about you. For an hour or so while I tried to explain what'd happened to everyone.

Then they asked me about you, and I started to tell them about Lion. But he must have wandered outside or something, cuz I couldn't find him. They were asking about how you were doing and I borrowed Connie's instant camera and everything so I could have actual film of how you'd turned pink.

I couldn't find him.

I didn't tell anybody about how you got exploded on, because you got better! So everything was okay! And we could tell them together when you got home. I mean, I guess I thought it was your story to tell.

We all stayed out all night looking for Lion. The gems used the warp pads to go everywhere they could think of, and I woke up Sadie to unlock the Big Donut so I could get a bunch of Lion Lickers to lure him back.

We never found him. We still haven't found him. I hope he's okay too. Oh-! That reminds me, I have a favor to ask you later.

But… yeah. I kept looking for him every single day. But one time I was going back to the temple to check the warp pads again, and Martha and Dante were there. Have you talked to them yet? I can get you to their new place right after this if you want. But, right. They went down to the beach with me and we talked for a really, really long time.

They were sad you were gone and they didn't understand why I was looking for Lion but they said it wouldn't do any good. They, um. They told me it had been too long, and they had a memorial service planned.

I told them about how you fought off the robonoids! And how you said you didn't want to be afraid anymore. I still didn't tell them about how you died the first time, because I… I was too scared of what they'd say. I didn't want to make them even sadder.

Your service was nice. I have a recording of it around somewhere, you should watch it, unless you think that'd be too weird.

After all that, it was really… hard. I didn't go on any missions with the gems for a long time. Pearl said it was a good idea to lie low for a while after running away from the Diamonds, but that wasn't the reason why.

I was really scared of getting anyone else hurt. What happened to you, I mean even if you survived it, it just wasn't fair, Lars. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It was my problem and my decision and. Ahaha, for a couple years I was sure I'd never tell anyone this because I was so ashamed, but you deserve to know. The reason Homeworld came after you-Back when they first were looking at the gems here on Earth, I decided I should try to reason with them. And they asked if humans were wiped out yet, and I said no, there are tons of humans. Like my dad, and Connie, and the mailman and Onion and Sadie, and… Lars. So that's why they came after all of you.

So if I hadn't been so stupid trying to solve everything like that, if I had just listened to the gems, or if I just hadn't said your name, you'd __never have even left the planet__.

I'm sorry, Lars.


	8. Chapter 8

Lars hadn't been asking for all that stuff. Did he need to know it? Any of it? It didn't really matter, though, because Steven needed to tell it.

"Ugh, you dumb kid," he said, already standing and crossing over to where Steven was sitting and sobbing again. The hug he gave seemed to calm Steven down eventually, leaving him hiccuping and clingy.

"You're cold," Steven muttered, voice muffled from where it was buried in Lars's shoulder.

"You're warm," he said back, uncertainly rubbing Steven's shoulder and very aware of Connie's eyes on the two of them. (When he glanced at Connie, she seemed positively gleeful at the emotional catharsis, which made Lars even more self-conscious.) "But, okay, that accounts for a little while after I left. What else did I miss? Like, are you two, you know?" He pulled away enough to look between Connie and Steven. They looked back, waiting for him to finish the sentence. Lars scowled. "Are you __together__? Married with a bajillion quarter-gem babies or whatever?"

Connie sat up straighter with a smile. "Oh! Yes and no."

Steven wiped some runny snot and tears off his face (ew!) and nodded. "We live together and we fuse a lot. We haven't really talked about… kids?" His voice got uncertain as he looked to Connie for confirmation.

Connie's eyes sparkled like Steven's had a few minutes ago. "It'd be really interesting to see! The last few decades, humans have done some revolutionary studies on how gem bodies and human ones interact-you should really let me look at you sometime, Lars, do some tests-It would be revolutionary to do some studies on gem chromosomology and trait heritability! But," Connie blushed. "That's probably not the best reason to decide to have kids."

"Plus," Steven said to Connie. "I don't know if I would wind up turning into my kid like my mom did."

"That's a good point. I wonder if we did traditional human virility tests-"

Lars loudly cleared his throat, nonplussed. The startled couple looked back at him. "Gross," he said, returning to his seat.

"Yeah, I guess that's a discussion for another time," Connie admitted.

"It's kinda hard to sum up two decades of stuff," Steven said, twiddling his fingers. "I bet most of it you already know. Like, your family's moved. Oh, Sadie wound up working with my dad for a while! She does a singing podcast thing online. Uh… You already know about the truce with Homeworld and everything, that's something we've been working on a long time. Oh, uh, Buck got together with Sour Cream, I think that's still going on."

Whatever Lars had expected to hear, it wasn't that. "Ahahahahahaha, that's great! That's AWESOME. GOOD FOR THEM. Ahahahahahahahahahahaa." Once he realized he was laughing too long, he shut up, but Steven was either ignorant or kind enough to act like he didn't notice.

"But honestly, I think that's all the big news. Now!" Steven drummed his hands on his knees. "You gotta tell me what Homeworld was like."

"It doesn't change as much as Earth society, I'm pretty sure," Lars said, slumping against the back of his chair.

* * *

Right, so after you left, it was just me and the off-colors. "Us off-colors stick together" and everything, right?

Good news though. I don't know what weird gem-magic you did to me, but it didn't make me any easier for the robonoids to pick up. So it was a win-win for us. I got to hang out with gems who turned out to be cooler than most of the humans I knew here on Earth, and they got Lars the Human Shield.

They were pretty concerned about you, by the way. Kept wondering if something happened to you. I told them you were good at getting yourself out of scrapes and you were probably living it up on Earth surrounded by pretty clouds and donuts and donut-shaped clouds and whatever.

We kept hiding for a long time there. I know with all your diplomacy stuff I should have gotten in contact with you when you visited Homeworld, but we weren't on the surface that often, especially not for those first few years. I think, anyway; it was hard to tell time down there.

Right, and you were asking about the food thing? You know how when you came back through my hair, you asked if I was hungry or thirsty or tired? I just don't get like that anymore, Steven. It was weird at first, like half my body had gone numb or something. I mean, I could still feel stuff, but further away. Like all my senses were covered by an oven mitt. I dunno. It wasn't good but it wasn't bad either.

The off-colors and I had a lot of time to just talk when we were hiding from robonoids and the other gems. I got to tell them about Earth, they told me all about Homeworld. Which came in handy! Because for a while there-I'd guess five years-ish?-I actually lived topside.

Us off-colors were close but I didn't stay with them the whole time I was there. See, I found these reddish pink rocks that weren't gems but looked almost close enough, and I spent some time trying to polish one of them up. Check it out! Yeah, once it was a good enough fit I started wearing it as a plug in my ear. Then suddenly I could walk around like anyone else.

I'm sure I looked pretty trashy. With gems able to make their own clothes, there weren't any stores I could replace my wardrobe with, and obviously my "gem" looked pretty makeshift. But gems expect to see other gems more than they expect a pink zombie Earthling human whatever-I-am, so it worked out pretty well. For a while there, I got away with calling myself a Larzite from "the old Earth colony," until some higher-ups got suspicious as why there was a gross old failed Earth gem walking around on their planet. So yeah, last few years were on the run again.

But it's not like it was bad. It probably sounds weird, but, ugh. Homeworld is more home to me than Earth is, you know? I've been there the most. I don't fit in, but I fit in with the gems who __didn't__ fit in.

And it's all because of you, Steven. Don't beat yourself up about it. Honestly, I'm just glad to know _ _you're__ okay. Always sticking out your neck for people like a moron, it's a wonder you've survived this long. So, um, yeah, I guess that's what I've been waiting to say for twenty years or whatever. Thanks. Thanks, Steven. I owe you a lot.


	9. Chapter 9

Lars lay on the cold, wet sand. "Yeah, hey, there's a shooting star."

Steven grinned over at him. "Make a wish!"

"I wiiiiish..." Lars frowned. The salty Beach City air was filling his nostrils. If he was still fully human he'd probably be shivering. "I wish you'd go inside before you get a cold."

He felt a shove against his shoulder. "That's not a real wish!"

"Is so," Lars retorted. "Then… I wish you'd tell me what that favor you mentioned was."

"Hey, yeah, I almost forgot!" Steven shoved himself up, the smile on his face fading. "But now might not be a good time. You still have to go on your Official Lars Homecoming Victory Tour 2037 Sponsored By Steven Universe Enterprises Incorporated!"

"You just made up that business name."

A giggle. "I know. But you gotta go find your family and talk to them! Aaaand Sadie!" Steven made a bunch of gross kissing sounds.

"I am __not__ ready for that tonight. And in the middle of the night on a weekday, I doubt they are either."

"That's true…" Steven weighed his options before scooting closer to Lars. "Okay, but don't feel like you've gotta say yes or even answer right away. The favor's for Lion."

Lars sat up too, saying thoughtfully, "Yeah…! If you go through my hair, you can travel to wherever Lion is, right? You can see what he's been up to all these years."

"Uh-huh." Steven frowned. "It might not sound like a big deal, but I have no idea where he's been. It's not like him to up and vanish like that, and I'm not sure he's okay. If this winds up being a dangerous mission or something, if you don't want to get involved, I'll understand. This week must have been crazy enough for you already."

"Ooh, yeah, you've been wondering where he is for twenty freakin' years, what's one more night?" Lars's sarcasm was palpable. "Come on, Steven. I'm impatient to find out where your fleabag is too." He was already kneeling, his palms flat on the sand, hair billowing into his eyes.

"Wait, right now? Just like __that__?"

"I'm not gonna stay like this all night if that's what you're asking. Get in there," Lars said with a jerk of his head.

Steven hesitated, but then his excitement appeared in full force. "All right! I'm coming for you, Lion!" he cheered, sticking his foot in Lars's head like it was a normal thing to do.

Lars stayed kneeling, not sure whether Steven was transported away yet or if he was just looking around in the pocket dimension. Enough time passed that Lars nearly got out of position to stand, but he heard the telltale gasp coming from his head.

"Well?" he asked, not able to look up until Steven was all the way out.

"Close your eyes," Steven sing-songed happily. "I've got a surprise!"

Lars rolled them instead. "I'm serious, Steven. What'd you find in my hea- __woah__!" He was rudely interrupted by face-planting the beach and was left sputtering sand out of his mouth.

"Sorry!" Steven said gleefully, not sounding sorry at all. "Guess you've never had a lion come out of your head before!"

"What?! Where was he?"

Steven climbed on top of the giant pink cat. "In your hair! He was just... __lion__ around?"

Lars spat out more sand. "How is it __possible__ your jokes haven't improved in two decades?"

"Oh, come on, I've still got some __pride__."

"Worse. They're somehow getting worse," Lars decided.

Steven laughed, offering a hand to pull Lars up onto the zombie lion thing. Lars took it. "We've gotta go show Connie!" Steven said happily, stroking the thing's mane. "Oh, Lion, Lion! Do you remember how to teleport still?"

Lion didn't speak, obviously, that would have been ridiculous, though not more ridiculous than the rest of what was happening. Instead, Lion yawned.

Lars gave Steven a weird look. "Your lion can teleport? Don't tell me that means I'm supposed to be ab-"

Lars was cut off again, this time by a roar from their furry transportation.

"Hold on!" Steven cheered.

Lars obeyed, eyes bugging out as the lion carried them forward as fast as a car could, and then even faster. "This-is-insane!"

Steven kept laughing in response, shouting to Lion how good it was to see him again.

Abruptly the ride ended. Lars __hadn't__ been clinging on like he should have been, since the halt pitched Lars's body forwards for a faceplant to the ground for the second time in ten minutes. He scrambled back up as fast as he could.

"Connie!" Steven hadn't noticed, focusing on trying to awaken his partner by yelling at her window. "Connie, get down here, Lion's back!"

A light switched on as a bleary-eyed Connie leaned out her second-story window. "Lion's back?!" she parroted. "How-hold on, I'll come out!"

Instead of going down her stairs, Connie had chosen the route of climbing down her bedroom window and dropping to the ground. Pretty nimble for a lady her age, Lars thought. Though technically, Lars and Steven were both older…

"Oh my gosh!" Connie squealed when she saw Lion up close. "Lion! We thought we'd never see you again! You've been such a naughty cat. Naughty, naughty cat." Any possible dignity in her words were canceled out by the way she scritched his ears and buried her face in Lion's fluffy mane. "We should all go inside, get some rest! Steven, you should sleep on Lion. I bet he misses you too," she ordered. "Lars, you go on the couch. We'll figure this all out in the morning. And celebrate! Maybe see if anywhere still sells Lion Lickers," she mused as she led the group into her home.

Lars started to protest, but… he was actually, suddenly very sleepy. He barely made it to the couch in the living room before he passed out.

It took much longer for Connie and Steven to get over their excitement and actually get to sleep around the time the sun started to rise.

The noise they made didn't bother Lars at all. Not a stir.

* * *

Lars blinked awake blearily. He was… not on a couch anymore. Just. Pink. Pink everywhere. And his body felt so heavy, and the soft pink grass he was on was so comfortable… He must be dreaming, he thought. The idea seemed wrong but he was too tired to figure out why. And his limbs were too heavy, his mind too drowsy. The air probably smelled fragrant, he decided for some reason, but the mere effort of taking a breath was too much for him.

He lay in that spot, as immobile as stone but cozier than he'd ever been in his life, slightly curled up and chin tilted so that he could see. It must be a dry season, he thought absently, looking at how the leaves periodically dropped from the branches above him. One of them he watched detach itself, swaying to and fro before landing almost imperceptibly on Lars's nose. He was too sleepy to brush it off, but he smiled at the Narra tree before closing his eyes.

He should dream like this more often.


	10. Chapter 10

Lars heard someone calling him from far away. It was enough to rouse him, though he still felt dead to the world.

He opened his mouth to murmur an answer, but nothing came out. The stillness and peace of this place was physically impossible to disturb.

Lars let go of the little bit of air he had left his his lungs in a soft sigh, rustling the leaf on his nose. His eyes slid shut again.

* * *

Hands on his chest, something wet on his shirt. Ugh, and he'd just gotten to sleep again. Lars cracked his eyes open, slowly focusing them on Steven.

Steven, who looked like he'd been holding his breath for way too long, long enough that his eyes were watering.

Lars wanted to tell Steven to just take a breath, and he opened his mouth and tried. But he still couldn't inhale here, so he offered Steven a smile instead. His eyes closed again.

* * *

Steven was bound and determined to interrupt the first good rest Lars had had in twenty years. But based on how quickly Steven was dragging him away from his nap nook, maybe there was a reason.

Lars tried to stand so Steven wouldn't have to pull him. His feet didn't obey. He didn't feel a pins-and-needles sensation, but otherwise it was like his legs were still asleep.

It was then that Lars started to actually worry.

Steven's hands wrapped around his arms and the two of them plunged down through the ground itself.

And the lighting changed, and the peace disappeared, and Steven was gasping for air as the two of them tumbled out of a fluffy pink mane.

Though everything else had changed around him, Lars didn't feel any more awake. But now his sleepiness was a terrifying thing, something Lars realized was making Steven panic, so he tried to rouse himself. He succeeded in pulling himself to a sitting position on the floor, legs sprawled straight out from his torso and his weight all on his hands in between them.

Lars breathed in deeply. "Steven?" His voice was scratchy. "What's going on?"

"We're not sure yet," Steven said, brushing himself off with a resolute expression. From how Lars half-remembered seeing him in the dream, Lars would have expected a worse reaction.

Lars heard his name from behind him, and with effort he turned his head. "Sadie?" he said, confused. Of course she was older, but not so old to be unrecognizable as his former whatever-they-were-to-each-other.

Sadie made up for Steven's stoicism, coming forward and enveloping Lars in an embrace. All this touch was so unfamiliar to Lars after years on a planet of rocks. So warm and soft. Cozy.

"Oh, no you don't!" Steven said sharply as Lars tried to shut his eyes.

"What's going on with him, Steven?" Sadie's voice drifted over him, gentle as waves rocking themselves forward above a silent seabed.

"I think I figured out why my mom..." Steven's voice faded away too, and Lars felt himself slipping to sleep until he was jolted awake by Steven shaking him. "Lars, c'mon. Can you still talk? What's going on for you right now?"

"Just tired," Lars said with a huge yawn. "It was comfy in the pink place. I wanna go back."

Steven tapped his foot impatiently. Lars tried to think hard, search for a better answer. "After we got back with Lion, I got sleepy. Slept on the couch. First time since I died. Gimme another five minutes..."

"No, Lars!" Steven whined. "It happened right after we traveled on Lion, right?" Lion, as if knowing he was the subject of conversation, padded up to Steven and bumped his hand with his nose. Steven reached over thoughtlessly to scratch under the big cat's chin. "I found him sleeping in your hair, just like I found you sleeping in his. Under your own trees."

"So what's that mean?" Sadie's voice was much louder to Lars, who still had his skull resting on her shoulder. The sound rumbled through her chest. Comforting. He'd missed it.

"I think maybe my gem can only handle so much here," Steven answered guiltily. "It's what's keeping Lion alive, right? And Lars too. Maybe if they're both, you know, using my life magic at the same time, it tires them out."

"So if you send the lion through Lars's hair, he'll be fine, right?"

Lars started to drift off again before Steven answered, "I think so. Will he fit?"

Sadie quickly answered, "It's worth a shot!"

"Is that okay, Lars? Lars!" Steven repeated himself when Lars didn't answer right away. "Can we try to send Lion through your head again? Just to see what happens?"

"Do whatever you want, Steven," he answered, turning his head so that he was breathing on Sadie's neck. He felt her skin get goosebumps underneath him.

"I'm going in with him," Steven said above the two of them.

Lars felt himself being lowered to the floor. Sadie was moving him like he was fragile as glass. "'m not gonna break," he muttered but got no answer besides a pat on the shoulder.

He didn't even feel the Lion gingerly stepping through his hair, though he knew it was happening based on Steven's frustrated grunts. Like putting a cat in a carrier, Lars thought distantly and wondered whether Lion had sharp claws.

But abruptly Lars could feel that Sadie and he were alone in the room.

"Lars?" she said his name again.

"Mm. Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

"'m fine. Don't worry. Glad you're, y'know," He closed his eyes against the polished wood of the floor. "Okay too."

Sadie sniffed and heaved Lars up. Lars was starting to wake up already; he could feel it. But he still let himself be moved sleepily.

Last time they'd seen each other, Lars would have shrieked in embarrassment. But right now, it felt nice to have her brushing her fingers through his hair. "Missed you, player two," he said quietly.

"Typical," Sadie answered kindly with a sniff. "Always coming back to me."


	11. Chapter 11

By the time Steven had come back out of Lars's head alone, which was long enough that Lars wondered if Steven had practiced holding his breath while Lars was asleep, Lars was feeling much more alert. He was awake enough to be ashamed for acting so emotional, so he'd scooted over to the chair of a couch and wrapped his arms around his knees, looking away from Sadie. She seemed about to say something when Lars saw his hair glowing in his peripheral vision. He quickly kneeled, letting a breathless Steven step out.

"Lion's already falling asleep again," Steven said unhappily, straightening up. "Lars, are you feeling-"

"I'm awake now," Lars interjected crabbily. "You mind explaining what happened while I was in there? Because if it's been another twenty years-"

"No, no," Sadie said, waving her arms. "It was like a week, Lars. Less even."

"Long enough to drag you back to Beach City," Lars said before he realized he wasn't sure where they were. It seemed like Connie's house again, but was it actually in Beach City? Well, close enough.

"I was already on my way, stupid. Steven called me before they realized you'd gone missing."

"So what, you just dropped everything-" Lars shut up, because he recognized the look on Steven's face. The I-can't-wait-to-see-you-get-together-and-have-a-baby-and-name-it-after-your-old-pal-Steven look. Lars turned his head, his mouth twisting downwards. "You didn't think I was dead for the millionth time, did you?" he asked Steven.

Steven shook his head. "The gems weren't sure, but it didn't make any sense. Why would you come all this way just to leave in the middle of the night? And could you survive somewhere for twenty years without food or water just to give up when you're back on Earth?" The young man put his hands on his hips. "You and Lion are connected. After I turned you pink, he vanished! And after he came back, you disappeared. How would he have gotten in your hair without you knowing anyway?" He looked away. "Besides… I might not have known my mom, but I know gems and people who loved her. If she could have just turned everyone pink and saved their lives forever, she would have. And she had more than one lion! So why would she just save one living thing if she were able to save everybody? She wouldn't," Steven said decisively.

Lars leaned forward, grimacing at the implication. "So it's me or the lion. Is that what you're saying?"

"Well, no," Steven said, drumming his fingers against his side. "You guys both exist. And when you were in his mane, you weren't dead or hurting or anything, right?"

Lars shook his head. "It was nice. I don't think I slept like that even when I was still alive."

"You're still alive now," Steven corrected stubbornly. "So you guys can take turns! Problem solved!"

"Uh, Steven," Sadie said from behind them. "I know you're really attached to Lion, and I see why! But he's not the same as a human life, is he? Lars has friends and family who missed him all these years. We don't want him shut up in some gem hypostasis somewhere."

"But Lion's important too!" Steven insisted. "He's my friend!"

"Lars is your friend too! And mine!" Sadie positioned herself in front of Lars protectively. "You're not gonna put him in some weird gem thing after everything we did to get him back!"

Lars stood up, pushing Sadie away. "Sadie. Thanks, but. Steven's not the enemy here. He's the one who got me back here, remember? The creepy memorial center and everything?"

Steven said a disheartened "It's creepy ?" before Sadie took a step back, reevaluating. "Sorry, Steven," she muttered. "I guess I got carried away."

"I get it!" Steven said, bouncing back to cheerfulness with no effort at all. "I don't want Lars to get shut up in a weird no-oxygen dimension either, no matter how pretty it is. But it's not fair for Lion to be stuck there either. We've gotta figure out a way for them to both be walking around on their own."

Lars frowned. "Steven. I'm not used to being on Earth." He waved a hand at his surroundings. "I still wanna say hi to my family and everything, but I'm not afraid of going back there. It's ten times better than hiding on Homeworld, easy. Is this really your choice to make?"

Steven and Sadie's voices joined together in protest, but Lars waved them away. "I'm serious! Go hang out with your lion and junk. I'm sure he's better company than I am any day." When Lars saw Sadie open her mouth, he turned toward her. "Actual company, Sadie. I know you missed me when I was gone but I never made you happy when I was around, did I?"

Sadie shook her head, starting her argument off strong but ending it in a mumble. "That's not true! You made me happier than you had any right to."

"So it's decided!" Steven said with a clap. "Both Lars and Lion are staying!"

"You can't just change reality because you feel like it, Steven," Lars said.

"Or can I?" Steven said slyly, a hand rubbing his chin. Then he dropped it. "No, I can't. Or if I can I still haven't figured out that power yet. Maybe we should think about this harder."

"What's there to think about?" Lars asked. "Your gem's only got so much power in it. Life-power or whatever, anyway. You think you can create life out of the blue?"

"Maybe not create life," Steven said thoughtfully. "But I'm sure there's a way to manipulate it. Take something magic you only have a set amount of, and make the parts of it play off each other. Make the pieces stronger than the whole." He hummed. Then Steven gasped, dragging his hands down his cheeks. "Lars! Lars! Lars!"

"What what what?" Lars said, stepping back from the unwelcome enthusiasm.

"Have you ever tried fusion? "


	12. Chapter 12

Lars felt awkward, all gangly limbs and big feet, when Steven took his hands. At least they were alone now; after a long conversation about what exactly the attempt at fusion would entail, Sadie agreed to give them some privacy.

Despite the fast-paced dance music blasting from the piece of glass on the table, Lars's steps were clunky and heavy: no doubt a consequence of Lion's reappearance. Steven had insisted, not sure whether they'd be able to get Lion back out once he and Lars were fused.

The whole concept of which was giving Lars the willies.

Sure, he supported fusion wholeheartedly-in theory, and for gems. Trying to do it himself, and with someone he used to be close to but now barely knew, no less, was a whole different issue.

"It's not gonna work if you're all stiff like that," Steven said, smiling at him. Not judging. Not critical. Just trying to help, because he's Steven.

Lars took a breath to steady himself. "Sorry, I'm just having a hard time concentrating. You were right, about how Lion being out here is taking more out of me."

"But you don't need to concentrate! Remember how you were falling all over Sadie earlier? You were relaxed then, even if you were sleepy."

"Ugh, don't remind me." They were still moving. Steven was trying to keep in step with Lars, letting him lead, but that was the opposite of what he needed. Lars didn't dance. He knew the concept, he'd seen gems dance when fusing before, but each one's style was different. Lars's dance style was more like he was following a printed-out sheet of dance instructions with black and white footprints labeled "R" and "L" trailing across the page. Except he didn't even have that much to rely on here.

"You gotta think about something that makes you excited. And makes me excited! Not big and serious. Just, huh." Steven pulled Lars's hands back and forth thoughtfully. His expression got sneaky. "Oh! Do you remember..." A devilish smile that looked almost out of place on Steven. "Tiiiger Millionaire?"

Lars's steps got a little faster as he was distracted from his own movements. "What!" He laughed. "I haven't thought about that stuff in ages. Ha, remember Sadie's weird theory? About you guys being the same person?"

"Yeah, haha, about that-"

"But no way you could have pulled off something as lame as that philosophical donating crap. And I know enough about you by now to know you wouldn't-" Lars's steps were quickening; he was pulling Steven back and forth. "Lose like that! That stupid last match! I can't believe he and Purple Puma would just let themselves go out like that! It had to be staged, right?"

Steven laughed at him, making his own footwork more complex to keep up with Lars's slightly longer stride. "A pro-wrestling match? Staged? What?!"

"I knooow!" Lars whined. "It's impossible! But those guys were so strong! You shoulda been there, Steven, it was crazy! It must've been rigged! They went down in like ten seconds flat!"

Steven was bouncing right along with him, beaming. "I can't believe you still care about this twenty years later, Lars!"

Lars was almost shouting by now. Maybe his memories of the match themselves had faded, but it would be impossible to forget the righteous fury and heart-pounding excitement he'd felt during the last tag-team match. "Are you kidding? I remember it like it was-"

"Yesterday," he breathed.

Something had just happened.

It had just happened.

Dancing had been hard to get started but he felt so euphoric, he could have done it on his own. He laughed out loud, clutching himself. Then he stopped, looking at his coral-toned hands, thinking over their last conversation.

No. No way.

...But hadn't he known it all along?

 _ **Steven was Tiger Millionaire** no way no way no way!_

Any inner turmoil at the revelation was abetted by realizing he could remember it. Bits and pieces from the matches, from both outside the wrestling ring and from inside it. Not just that, but Steven seeing Lars at the Big Donut and vice versa; the Zoltron fortune teller (which had been Steven all along too?! Was anything in this town not Steven?!) being weirdly specific about Lars's work relationships; and, of course, the last time they'd seen each other on Homeworld. This mnemonic double-vision gave him vertigo.

He almost wanted to collapse in a heap. But he was so… excited. And, he realized with growing interest, not tired at all!

Automatically, he put a hand to his chest. Th-thump! Th-thump! Th-thump! Th-thump! It felt fast to him. It felt healthy.

He let a rush of air out of his lungs with a satisfied "haaaaah!" He had to go show someone! Show the gems, show Connie, show Sadie.

Show them what?

The thought made him leap to his feet, wandering to a mirror. He knew where everything was in the house now, which must have come from Steven. His reflexion made him grin unabashedly. His hair was long, still pale pink. He tried to touch it; it glowed when his skin made contact, but his fingers found only coarse curls, not another dimension. Interesting. Good thing they'd gotten Lion out of there ahead of time. Though, ooh, he should try traveling through Lion next.

He was tall, taller than either Lars or Steven had been, which didn't surprise him. Garnet and Rhodonite were both pretty big too. The thought of the two fusions made him smile even bigger. This almost didn't make sense! Lars would never call himself a happy person. Steven was cheerful but not this much.

It must be being like this. Being fused made him happy. He unabashedly hugged himself and giggled. Was this how it felt all the time the perma-fusions he knew? Stevonnie felt like this a lot, he realized. His fingers were groping his own face now, pleased. He still had that fake gem plug in his left ear, weird, especially since his right ear seemed to never have been gauged. He felt his belly button-yep, the familiar shape of Rose Quartz's gem stood out.

Who was he, anyway? If Steven and Connie were Stevonnie. Two thoughts immediately came to mind, overlapping each other: Stars and Larven.

He was doubled over with laughter again. Larven! Larven! That was the ugliest name he'd ever heard! Like a baby bug! But Stars was equally ridiculous. He vividly pictured one of the Diamonds saying, "Oh my stars," and guffawed.

Oh man. Oh man oh man oh man. He hoped he'd never unfuse.


	13. Chapter 13

It was a cinch for him to figure out the newfangled cell phone at this point. His thick fingers flicked and swiped across the glass surface, turning off the dance music and calling up the gems in a second.

"Pearl!" he said triumphantly when he heard her "Hello, Steven?" on the phone. "Guess who's got two thumbs and just figured out how to keep Lars in our dimension?"

"Was it Connie?"

"Wh-no!" He tossed the phone up and down in his hand. Technology was slicker than it used to be; there was no feedback when it hit his palm, and having Pearl on speakerphone was like having her right next to him. Neat. "I'm talking abouuuut this guy !"

"Which guy? Lars? Have you talked to him? Oh, I'm so relieved; we've all been worried about how you'd take this."

He made a fart noise with his tongue. "You and Garnet and Amethyst are still all at the temple, right? Can I come over and show you?"

An uncertain "Yes?" was his answer. "See you in a few!" he said before hanging up. Then he stretched out his limbs, surprised when his hand brushed the ceiling and sent flakes of plaster drifting down onto on his shoulders. He hummed to himself, touching his toes like he was getting ready for a race. He remembered the first time Steven had been part of Stevonnie, how they had run and shouted and jumped barefoot on the beach. He wasn't going to do that now-too many people would see him-but he could at least jog the way back to the temple. Feel his new body out a bit.

From the Steven part of him, he knew where he was in Beach City now: technically within city limits but on the outskirts. He placed himself by landmarks he passed, every one of which reminded him of days long gone.

When he reached the Big Donut, he skidded to a stop, pressing his face against the glass storefront. It wasn't a donut shop anymore. Oh, yeah , this was Ronaldo's new business. Posters inside advertised informative historical tours of Beach City with a supernatural bent. Neither Lars nor Steven had ever gone on one of Ronaldo's tours, but he'd bet money that the "supernatural" was given much more attention than advertised. Still, the building held some familiar wear and tear, cracks in the plaster and chips in the glass that even Lars would have recognized from the old days. It made him feel more at home here. As he left the former Big Donut, he wondered what Ronaldo would do if he saw him now. Freak out, take pictures, update his blog , he answered himself.

As he neared the beach house, he started sprinting and taking the stairs three at a time, suddenly anxious and excited for his new self to get a reaction from the gems. He didn't knock when he got to the door. He pulled it open with a single large movement, finding Pearl sitting before him, waiting.

She got to her feet immediately. "Who-! You fused!" she said with a gasp, a hand in front of her mouth.

He nodded with a flourish and a "ta-daaa!" The Lars part of him wanted to be anxious, wanted to play it cool, but it was overridden by Steven's trust of the gems and Lars and Steven's shared excitement. He bounced on his heels. "So? Whaddya think of the new me? Steven found Lars in Lion's mane just like he told you. Sleepy but nothing wrong with him! I guess Rose's gem only has enough in it to sustain one pink zombie thing at a time."

"Duuude," Amethyst said from the second story of the house, the part that had once been Steven's bedroom. "We gotta show Garnet. She's gonnafreak out ."

"Amethyst!" He whirled around to face her giddily. "You!"

"Eh, me?"

"Can I ask you a favor?" He was bouncing again, like the new energy from Steven and Lars's forms combined were too much for a single body to handle.

Amethyst looked around and shrugged. "Sure?"

His eyes grew wide, shining. "I wanna see Purple Puma!"

Pearl hummed, confused. Amethyst hopped down from the wooden ledge, popping her neck. "I dunno, dude," she said, taking a few steps toward the fusion. "It's been soooo long, and shapeshifting really takes a lot out of me, and wha-bam !" Her form stretched and molded into something bigger, striking a pose identical to his 'ta-daa' a moment ago.

"Lars is fusing for the first time and the first thing he wants to see is Amethyst's pretend fighting form?" Pearl wondered aloud while the fusion's jaw dropped.

" Soooo cooooooool ," he said in awe.

"Why you feeling nostalgic for the ring, buddy?" Amethyst asked, flexing various muscles in increasingly ridiculous ways.

"I just found out about Steven being Tiger Millionaire!" he answered. "Well, he knew, but Lars didn't, and I definitely didn't know because I only just started existing, right? I had no idea this whole time this was all right under my nose !"

He wasn't sure what he meant. The wrestling personas? Steven and Amethyst secretly being the coolest gems ever ? Being able to fuse like this? Or just that he was even capable of being this excited, all the time, whenever he wanted, about everything ? Earth, Homeworld, everything felt like something he'd known about for a while but only just started really seeing. Everything was worth celebrating! This was insane! He burst out laughing. Amethyst was still playing along as the Purple Puma, flipping herself upside down to push herself up and down on a finger, draping herself on the floor to stretch a hairy, muscular leg to the ceiling like she was part of a magazine photoshoot, and flexing so hard that her chest straps kept bursting off her and being replaced with a flash over and over.

No wonder Steven always cared so much about life on Earth if it was supposed to be like this all along!

He was so carried away with Amethyst's goofing off that he didn't notice anyone approaching behind him, not until her arms were wrapped around him and lifting him off the ground. He was taller than her still, but definitely not stronger.

"And who's this?" Garnet asked teasingly.

He twisted himself around in her grip, hesitating only a moment before squeezing her back. Lars would never hug someone like this. Steven would never not hug someone like this. Somehow the Steven side was overpowering (or at least that's the excuse Lars would be sure to later make).

"Garnet!" he cried happily.

"You're not Garnet," she corrected with a grin. "I can see that much."

"Oh! Right! Introductions!" He squirmed out of her grip, flexing his fingers and trying to decide last-minute on what he should call himself. Which name would be less ridiculous? Or rather, which name would be the most ridiculous? It was impossible to decide!

"Sterlarvens!" he said. Then he cackled. "No! No! I mean Leavin'! No, wait! Larevens!" He was laughing so hard that no one could talk over him. He wiped at his eyes, trying to shut up. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I just, I haven't had this much fun in years ! This is like being on a roller coaster! I don't even know!"

"That's good to hear, Stars, " Garnet said smoothly.

"Taking the fun out of it already!" Stars snapped back, but it was clearly in good humor. " Aah ! Is this seriously how you feel twenty-four-seven?"

Garnet's looked impassive, her straight-faced expression carved like rock, and said flatly, "Every. Single. Second."


	14. Chapter 14

"This is awesome!" Connie said, circling Stars and checking out every single inch of him, which only made him a little uncomfortable. "You're awesome! How do you feel?"

"Not tired at all, which makes this a success, right?" He smirked, plopping down on the couch.

"Definitely! I'm so proud of you! Though this is a little weird, seeing Steven part of a fusion when I'm not in it," she admitted sheepishly. Stars waved a hand, a 'no big deal' gesture. "So you're gonna be doing the presentation instead of Stevonnie?"

"Uh." Just like on the starship ride at Funland, the floor dropped out from under him. "Presentation?"

"Well, yeah! Lars didn't know about it, I'm sure, but Steven did. It took months to get everything ready!"

Stars's face was still blank. Connie crossed her arms. "Steven did remember it, didn't he?"

"I dunno!" Stars abashedly folded his arms across his chest as well, his lip jutting out. "I'm not him!"

Connie shook her head, affectionately sighing. "He never did wrap his head around anything that resembled homework." She plopped on the couch next to Stars, who scooted himself just far enough away to not have his knees in her face. "For the Center. We were gonna do a follow-up speech about fusion and gem-human relations. Bring in a few people who are comfortable around gems and know how to defend themselves, just so the gems can ease into human contact. Remember now?"

That did sort of ring a bell for Stars. "Oh, yeah…" A thought struck him and he jumped up. "I can't do a speech like this!"

Connie stared up at him. "Like what?"

"Like, you know, this! Fused!" His face burned. "I mean, I'm having a lot of fun this way, but I've barely even figured out my own name! I can't get up in front of hundreds of gems and talk about what it's like to be me when I don't even know yet!"

"Calm down, Stars!" Connie said, making patting motions in the air. "It's okay! You don't have to do the talk. I've prepared enough, and if we focus on just the human interaction part instead of the fusion stuff, it should be okay if I'm the only one to do it. And it's probably good for them to see me unfused! All right? You won't need to make any speeches, you just gotta show up."

"Are you sure?" Apparently whatever emotions Stars felt, he felt hard. The all-consuming joy was sucked away by an uncertainty that made his knees shake as he paced. He ran a hand through his hair nervously. "Would it be better for me to unfuse? Lars would be okay with it." Before Connie could answer, Stars softly answered himself, "But Steven wouldn't like it, would he."

Connie shook her head, gesturing for Stars to sit beside her again. "He's been worried about Lars. I know Lars was okay with being asleep, but it was really scary for everyone else. Even if we know where Lars and Lion go when they disappear, it doesn't mean anyone's used to the idea."

"Steven uses the hair dimension like a storage space for stuff he doesn't use often," Stars agreed numbly. "He thinks that putting Lars in it is like packing him up into storage." He collapsed on the couch again, head in palms. "It's just a nap," he added to himself. "Who cares where it is? Lars probably would have been willing to sleep in a storage pod even when he was still human."

Connie smiled at him encouragingly. "Being a fusion is more difficult than you thought, huh."

"Yeah!" Stars burst out. Steven might have known how fusion felt, but neither he nor Lars knew how being Stars would feel until it happened. "How come we're not unfusing? We're disagreeing!"

"You still feel the same about it, though," Connie said, patting Stars's knee. "Garnet says a fusion is a conversation, right? If you're both still willing to talk about it normally, and if you both don't want to fall apart, you'll stay fused. Right?"

Stars mumbled but nodded, then reluctantly said, "Thanks, Connie. You're… pretty cool. Like, Steven knew that, but Lars didn't."

"So generous with the compliments!" Connie said, nudging Stars in the ribs with her elbow. "When Steven said he wanted to try this when he found Lars, I didn't know you'd be such a gentleman."

"Yeah, well…"

"Who knows?" Connie continued playfully. "Maybe sooner or later we can try making a Starvonnie."

Stars choked.


	15. Chapter 15

Stars jiggled his leg. If anyone asked, he decided to blame his nerves on the impending space flight, which he realized now was not as comfortable for passengers as Steven hoped it would be. But nobody asked him, so his attempts at finding an excuse for anxiety were hollow. What he was actually worried about wasn't as minor-after all, half of him was immortal and the other half had access to both a shield and a protective bubble, so he was sure he'd be fine.

No, it was the gems Connie had spoken about, the ones in the audience. Steven was open to learning from every gem out there, but Lars's heart wasn't as big. He still had memories, bad ones, about some of the gems in charge and what they'd tried to do to less prestigious gemstones. Would Stars be able to get over that, to talk to them all on a level turf? Or maybe the better question was whether Stars would be able to reign in any panic that might emerge in himself.

The constant fidgeting was a coping skill, a way of both Lars and Steven trying to comfort themselves together. Connie occasionally catching their eyes or talking soothingly about event plans helped distract him too. "So when we're talking about our planned upgrades to the Center and its public transportation, we'll bring Peridot on as a technical advisor," she was saying now. Stars nodded along, barely listening. "Wait, there she is. Peridot!" Connie waved the green gem over to them.

Stars froze, heart thumping in his ears.

"Peridot, hey! Come sit with us!" Connie continued. "You haven't had a chance to meet Stars, right? Steven told you about all that?"

"Yes, Steven told me all about the experimental fusion." Peridot stood before them, hands behind her back. It wasn't a threatening gesture, but Stars felt a chill. Like he was being evaluated, stripped naked before Peridot's unimpressed look. Stars was breathing faster. Connie took notice, squeezing his hand in concern, but Stars barely felt it. "Created in an attempt to anchor Steven's gem's energy to Lars, right? I have to say, it was an ingenuitive solution."

Connie reached out to him; Stars had been scrabbling backward in his seat. "What's going on?" Connie said, interrupting. "It's just Peridot. Steven knows her. You're safe. You're okay, we're on the ship, you're with me and Peridot, you're safe."

Stars shook his head, so many thoughts zipping through his head that he couldn't keep pace with them. Like there wasn't just one person thinking, but two-

Lars and Steven burst away from each other in a flash. Steven grabbed at Connie's hand, panting, while Lars had been thrown to the floor and stared up at Peridot with wide eyes. She wasn't tall, probably less than half Lars's height, but to him she seemed to tower over him the same way she might have with limb enhancers.

"What was that?" Peridot said rudely.

"I don't know!" Steven said. He was getting his bearings back, standing and offering his hand to Lars. "Lars, what happened? As soon as we saw Peridot-"

"Homeworld!" Lars stammered. "I knew her on Homeworld!"

"Uh." Peridot examined him closer. Lars's heart wasn't beating fast or loud anymore, but it felt like it should have been. "No, I think I'd remember seeing something like you."

"Lars, Peridot's our friend," Steven said slowly. "She left Homeworld ages ago, way before you got stuck up there."

"No, she-!" Lars grasped his skull, pushing against it like he was trying to trap it in a vise. "She was working for Yellow Diamond! Figured out how to change the robonoids!"

Steven crouched beside him. "Different Peridot," he whispered. "Different Peridot. I promise, Lars."

But they looked so much the same, sounded so similar. Not an issue with most gems from the surface, who'd interacted with Lars briefly and without even knowing his name. But this one! The Peridot who'd been assigned to figure him out once his Larzite plan was busted. Same face, same snobbish tone in her voice, same feeling of being examined at the molecular level when she looked at him. He half-expected her to start running tests, zapping him with that two-pronged metal rod thing, or talking about how he was being kept intact via quantum whatevers from some gem halfway across the universe and how this ability could be harnessed for a future superweapon.

"What's he doing?" Peridot's voice rippled over Lars as he mentally repeated to himself that he wasn't going to run away, that he was done hiding, that he didn't need to be scared. He heard Steven whispering to Peridot, asking that she go away, which made him more upset. Why? Lars didn't want to be around her. But he didn't want somebody else having to protect him either. Lars pushed himself up and stomped away, pretending he didn't hear the tactless "Why is he pink, though? What's he made of?" behind him.

Lars spent a while seething to himself, hands balled into fists in his lap, furious for a lot of little reasons and no specific big one. He wasn't even mad at Peridot. She wasn't the gem who did that to him. He knew that. He wasn't mad at Steven for unfusing with him. It had been involuntary. He wasn't even mad at himself, not quite. If he was mad at himself he wouldn't feel so justified in his temper. To make matters worse, he was getting sleepy again. Unlike before, he would mind blooping out of existence for a few days right now, and the inconvenience of this all was ticking him off as much as the situation itself.

Lars was almost at the point of trying to tear his hair out in frustration when Steven slid next to him.

"We're taking off soon," Steven said conversationally like nothing was wrong, bless him.

"Ugh, Steven." Lars picked his head up morosely. "What happened? Why'd we come apart like that? We weren't arguing or anything."

"Fusion's kinda delicate sometimes," Steven said with a shrug. "You felt really strongly one way. I feel really strongly the other way. Even fusions like Garnet come apart when that happens."

Lars groaned, and Steven hesitantly patted his back. They'd been much closer physically a few minutes ago, but this felt like a different kind of barrier, and Steven pulled his hand away when Lars stiffened up in response. "This isn't fair," he complained. "We'd just found a fix! It was going so well!"

"We can fuse again," Steven said. "We can take it slow, not talk to Peridot much for a while?"

"I'm not gonna make you do that," Lars grumbled. "I lost track of our thoughts when we split, but I felt what you wanted. You want me to talk to Peridot and get along and become bee-eff-effs. I kind of never want to see her again. I know she didn't personally do anything to me," he interjected before Steven could answer. "But at this point? I don't really care. And no, I don't wanna talk about why."

"That's fair," Steven said, looking down with the good grace not to laugh at the "bff" retro slang. "You-we-were right what we said, about how I don't want to shut you up in storage. But if you don't want to fuse, I won't make you, even if that means you wind up in Lion's mane again. You've dealt with so much new stuff since you got back to Earth! And all this interplanetary ambassador stuff is a lot of responsibility you didn't ask for in the first place. If you need to take a break, I get it."

"...Really? I know how strong you feel about this stuff." Diplomacy, and making friends, and Peridot being a member of the team, and keeping Lars in the real world, and being fused. That stuff.

"Of course, Lars," Steven said, smiling sadly. "I know how you feel about it too, remember? You're your own person. You can go wherever you want. Just promise to come back afterwards, okay?"

Lars cracked an identical smile. "Now that, I can do."


	16. Chapter 16

Lars wound up skipping the trip, though not exactly intentionally.

As the ship was finishing up and announcing its upcoming departure, Lars lifted his head from where it had drooped on Steven's shoulder. "You should have Connie go on Lion," he murmured. "Or in some kinda escape… pod…. or transport pad… or whatever." Steven looked at him with a frown, trying to parse Lars's sleeptalk. Lars waved a hand around them. "No seatbelts. Crap ride for anyone humanish."

Seeing the light dawning in Steven's expression, Lars decided his duty for the interstellar political UN department of transportation thing was completed. When he next remembered blinking, the thick unbreathable air had settled upon him like a heavy quilt. His head rested against the soft grass, though this time, he was positioned to see Lion's tree in the distance.

Forget Peridot. Forget Stars coming apart. Just remember the good feelings that had run through him since his last time here, memories congealing into something syrupy-sweet and warm that weighed down his head and dragged his lids shut.

* * *

This kind of sleep was pleasant, uninterrupted by dreams or nightmares or even memories. Just an occasional echo of Steven's voice, which Lars didn't think too hard about. It felt like only minutes until he felt a tugging on his arm and heard "C'mon, Lars! Wakey wakey eggs and bakey!"

He was dragged out of slumberland and into the crisp-scented world of the living. "You actually made bacon," Lars said blearily.

"Of course I did!" Steven said cheerfully, setting a smiling plate in front of Lars at a breakfast table.

Lars climbed on the stool, staring down at the egg-eyed, bacon-lipped grin laid before him. "Uhh, Steven," he said carefully while Steven stared at him expectantly, sitting across from Lars and digging into his own breakfast.

...Not worth it to point out that he didn't need to eat and barely remembered how it was done. Lars picked up a fork and prodded at the eggs, gingerly putting a bite in his mouth. The texture was creamy and slimy, making Lars's nose wrinkle, and he gulped before he could taste it too much. The strong taste grossed him out.

"Weeell?" Steven said expectantly.

Lars tried to look grateful though it felt like more of a grimace. "Thanks," he said flatly. "Yum." He was curious about the bacon though, and took a small bite of it as well. This one wasn't so bad: greasy and fatty, but crisp and salty and laden with umami. He didn't want much more than the bite he took, but it didn't make him cringe like the eggs. Lars lay his fork down, breakfast finished after two bites. "Thanks, Steven," he said again. "You're not a bad cook.'

"Wow! A chef compliment coming from Lars ?" Steven was tickled pink, so Lars decided not to mention that his abilities in the kitchen were rusty enough to be worthless by now.

"Yeah. What day is it?" Lars asked to change the subject.

Steven grabbed his phone from a pocket. "Oh yeah! I was gonna show you the news!" His fingers flew across the glass and he set it down on the breakfast table. A screen of two conversing people at a desk projected to the wall opposite Lars and Steven with the date in the corner. Only a few days had passed.

"Technology nowadays," Lars said, wrinkling his eyebrows as the talking heads yammered about politics. "Which reminds me, how did your conference thing go?"

"Pretty well! I thought we'd get a lot of conservative gems protesting since we're introducing so much that's new to them all at once. But I think most gems are as sick of Homeworld's way of doing things as we are. Even their Diamonds," Steven said, tittering. "And the technological upgrade initiatives are popular. I think we'll get your seatbelts installed in the next couple months," he added.

Lars sneered, playing with the food on his plate with his fork. "Let me guess. Peridot's involved?"

"She is," Steven said with a nod. "Do you want to talk about that?"

Lars sighed loudly. "Not really? I told you, I knew a Peridot on Homeworld. I guess 'knew' is stretching it. But it was… she was a jerk, Steven. Like, not even her personality. What she did to me." His egg-face was lopsided and freakish now. "What she was ordered to do to me, I guess."

Steven quietly affirmed, "Homeworld can be messed up." He wasn't understating things, Lars could tell. Just agreeing without making Lars say more than he wanted to. Dang, the kid was too good at talking to people. Or at talking to Lars in particular; it was hard to tell.

The silence afterwards as Steven waited for him to say something was oppressive, though, and got worse until Lars dropped his fork. "Fine! Fine, Steven, I'll apologize to her, okay?!"

Though he'd asked nothing of the sort, Steven perked up. "Really? That would be awesome! I can call her over right now! Or would you rather do it on the phone? Or text her? She's got some kind of communicator on her, I'm positive."

"On the phone," Lars said, face scrunched up. He felt like a kid being made to invite the least popular kid in class to his birthday party. "Do you have to be there?"

"No, though you probably need my cell chip to make the call." Steven was playing the part of the proud parent at his brat being gracious enough to talk to his classmate, which made Lars scowl.

"Yeah yeah okay let's get it over with," he said, shoving his plate away.

While Steven turned off the news and directed the phone to call Peridot, Lars tried to ad-lib a script in his head. 'Oh, Peridot, sorry for freaking out when I saw you the other day. It's just a peridot on Homeworld tried to torture me and I didn't want to make Steven listen to the gritty details. We can be besties like he wants now, right?' Or maybe he could pretend nothing happened in the first place. 'Peridot, right? Nice to meet you. I saw you the other day? Hah, completely forgot. What's up.' Or maybe he could be petty and offer some subtle digs at the gem to get back for her calling him a thing . 'No, I was just surprised! After all, not everyday you see a peridot as short as you. Guess Homeworld was running out of resources already by the time you were made, huh?'

When Peridot's face appeared projected on the wall-Lars guessed video chats were still a thing-his mouth went dry. Spoken language itself seemed to escape him. Steven offered some quick words of encouragement and left the room. Lars was alone, watching the green gem on video tapping her fingers on her forearm impatiently, wondering why she was called.

He couldn't move. He couldn't talk. His lips weren't forming words; he wasn't inhaling. It was just him and the peridot, using her gaze to tear him apart molecule by molecule.

Lars tasted stale egg.


	17. Chapter 17

"Lars," Peridot eventually said in a self-important, nasally tone, testing out his name. Lars half expected a skeptical "-ite" suffix to be added. "I'm happy you called. I needed to communicate with you."

"Let me guess. You need to know about my resonance frequency crap." Lars said under his breath. Based on Peridot's reaction, the mic was sensitive enough to catch it.

"Correct," she said, surprised. "How'd you know? Steven didn't mention that you were informed about internal resonance..."

"It's the same crap the peridot on Homeworld kept grilling me about when I got caught," Lars groused, leaning backward in the hopes of being out of frame.

"You met a peridot? Do you remember which facet and cut?"

Lars shook his head. "I wasn't really focused on that. Look, I told Steven I'd call and apologize, so I guess I owe it to you to answer your questions. Just don't get too personal, okay?"

"Apologize?" Peridot appeared legitimately baffled.

"You remember? How Stars _unfused_?" Lars's voice got hard.

"That?" Peridot kept drumming her fingers on her arm. "What does that have to do with _me_?"

"...Huh?"

"You were obviously emotionally distressed due to an outside factor," Peridot continued in a lecturing tone. She was no longer looking at the camera; she was flicking her finger on a screen outside Lars's view. "Your personal history with a peridot on Homeworld, correct? You didn't say much to _me_ about it."

"That's true, but… I was _really_ ticked off at you! I was _scared_ of you!" This wasn't going so well, apology-wise. Lars tried and failed to keep from sounding annoyed.

"So? We'd never met. Your reaction had nothing to do with me. Therefore treating this as a personal conflict between us would be fruitless." Peridot looked up from her screen. "But I'll gladly take the opportunity to ask you about your body if you'll allow it. Check _this_ out!" Peridot shoved a virtual image of a weapon at the camera. She'd gone from droning automaton to squealing child in about half a second, which threw Lars off.

"A gem destabilizer?" he asked, blinking. He'd seen them before-seen them destroy his friends' physical forms. But from Peridot's excited nod, she regarded it more as a toy than a weapon.

"A gem destabilizer! Has anyone ever used one on you?"

"Maybe," Lars answered, disturbed. "Should they have?"

"You agreed to answer my questions," she reminded petulantly.

"Fffffine." Lars really didn't like this gem. "Yes. The other peridot realized that I wasn't a gem, but said I wasn't a normal 'specimen of organic life' either. She did some… tests on me."

"And the destabilizer was one of them?" Peridot was clearly on the edge of her seat without regard for how negative the memories were, making Lars resent his current interrogation even more. "You survived though! How did it feel? Did it change your form at all? Cause any mutations, any side effects?"

"It tingled, kinda stung. Otherwise nothing."

"Interesting!" Peridot was doing something else with her phone. "It made contact with your skin, right? Or whatever you have that passes for skin. Where on your body?"

"I have _skin_!" Lars said, offended. "I don't know. My chest?"

"And you have no burn marks? Was it right over your heart?"

Lars was going to tell Steven the apology was a failure and that he never wanted to so much as hear Peridot's name ever again. " _Yes_ , it was over my heart!"

Green fingers tapped another screen. "I see!" Peridot was still looking excited in a particularly devious way, like she'd just figured out how to perfect a torture technique or whatever she did for fun. "Would you be adverse to wearing one around your neck?"

Lars stood up. "If you're trying to put a freaking shock collar on me, this conversation is over." He jabbed his finger at the phone's screen, trying to get it to turn off. (Its volume got louder and the projected image heightened its color contrast, but that's it.)

" _Fine_. I suppose bracelets of some sort would function just as well. Maybe we could even add tools onto them, like primitive limb enhancers…"

Lars looked up from the phone. "What are you _talking_ about?"

"Has Steven not told you about our project?" Peridot looked up innocently. "While you were 'asleep,' I did some tests on Steven's lion and came to the conclusion that enough energy applied at the appropriate resonance frequency could stabilize the form of-what did he tell me you called yourself? A zombie?-with the effects being magnified if near to a pulse point. But the possibility of hurting Lion with the experimental bursts of energy was judged too risky and the idea was scrapped. But _you_!" She nearly cheered, looking hungrily into the camera at her new potential test subject. "You've had a gem destabilizer used on you! The most powerful and accessible way to overload a gem's physical form with energy! The fact that you stayed intact means it's a safe enough idea to test! And as for turning the destabilization technology into something wearable for you and Lion, it'd be a snap! Just a matter of reworking the gadget into a more portable, comfortable form, perhaps with some rubber and surge protectors."

"That tells me nothing, Peridot," Lars said impatiently.

She flapped her arms, trying to rein in her enthusiasm, before holding up a finger to her camera. "This could be a breakthrough in keeping you and Lion here at the same time without requiring fusion!" she said slowly and clearly, like Lars was an idiot for not knowing what she'd meant.

Lars stopped trying to turn off the phone. "You, wait. You want to zap me with gem crap because you're trying to _help_ me?"

" _Yes_! Stars, you humans can be ignorant clods sometimes. Wait, 'sorry, no offense.'" She said the phrase like she'd been taught it word-for-word. "You're not a human."

"I'm not gonna be offended by being called _human_ ," Lars said in surprise. "You really think you can fix us that easy?"

"It wouldn't be easy for any other gem," Peridot said with a sniff. "But for a technician with my level of expertise? Expect a prototype in three days. ...Nyehehe, expect it then so I can surprise you with it sooner!"

Lars observed dryly, "You're not very good at surprises, are you?"

"You sound like Steven. I'm _working_ on it! Both on surprises and on the prototype. Try not to fall asleep between now and then," Peridot said before her image disappeared.

Lars would give her this much over him-Peridot at least knew how to operate a basic cell phone.


	18. Chapter 18

"Weeeell?" Steven slid in only moments after the call ended. Lars suspected he'd been eavesdropping on at least the tail end of it.

"It wasn't much of an apology," Lars admitted. "I'm not really sure _what_ that was. She wasn't upset or anything, and I thought she was being a jerk, but she said-wait." Lars stood up, sighing and tugging at a tangled curl. "I'm confused, but I'm not mad at her, I don't think. Maybe this would be easier if we were, y'know?" He dropped his hands to mesh his fingers together.

"If we were Stars again?" Lars nodded to Steven, who said, "Are you positive? I really, really don't want to be pressuring you into this! Unfusing on accident your first time can be traumatic, and in case it happens again, we need to talk about-"

"Steven. C'mon," Lars said before Steven could get another word in. "I'm exhausted and I'm apparently not allowed to fall asleep for days. It was fun being Stars with you. Let's just take it easy. If-" A thought occurred to him. "Wait, if you don't want to, I understand, like you're a big interplanetary diplomat thing now, there's more important stuff on your plate than me-"

He was cut off by Steven running towards him and sweeping him up in his arms. This time it only took one spin for them to feel the fusion about to happen. Maybe fusion was like riding a bicycle: easy once you know how to do it. Steven spun Lars around again and slowly lowered him until the two were standing closely, nothing between them but their own arms, Steven's palm on Lars's chest and Lars's on Steven's. Lars saw Steven's gem begin to glow, and it was the last thing Lars saw from his own eyes.

When he opened them again, he was sharing a set. Stars stretched out with a satisfied noise as his back popped. "Right!" he said, satisfied. "Now, about Peridot!" He focused on keeping his breathing steady as the rush of two-way memories washed over him in response to her name. It wasn't like learning new information for Stars; it was like being reminded of something he'd already known, but it helped him sort out his thoughts. "Lars should have listened!" Stars exclaimed happily. "Peridot, what a weirdo! What a way to do a favor for someone!" He remembered Steven and Peridot discussing helping Lion out earlier. "It'll work," he told himself. "It should be able to work!"

And Stars remembered with a pang how they knew it was safe. His hand sought out the shirt over his chest, clenching his fingers around it. "Lars," he said softly. It was sorrow for a friend and self-pity rolled into one. "That was probably-Time wise, it must have happened right when Steven was organizing _peace talks._ Yellow Diamond, what a _rat_." It was politics. Acting friendly to an ally didn't mean no one had back-up plans in case of war. Stars growled in the back of his throat, making a mental note to bring this up the next time he discussed work with her pearl. His fingers loosened around his shirt. "Steven was on Homeworld for a long time working on the treaty. Him and Lars… we might have even been in the same building."

Stars was silent, hearing only the rumbling of distant traffic and a ticking of an old-fashioned clock. He didn't hear footsteps, though they must have been there, since he abruptly felt a nuzzle against his hand.

"Lion," he said in surprise, crouching down so they could be at eye level. "How'd you get here?"

The pink cat, of course, didn't answer. Stars cracked a smile and offered a hand to Lion, who sniffed it and rubbed his muzzle against it. Stars could feel Lion's hard teeth.

"You must have been missing Steven, huh?" Stars asked Lion quietly. Lion stared up at him, slowly blinking and offering a wide yawn. "It's not like you know Lars. Or me, for that matter. I'm, um, I'm Stars by the way."

Apparently Stars met with Lion's approval, as the cat paced around him curiously before settling down against Stars's back. He leaned against Lion with a sigh, caught in an odd midway of trying to think and trying not to think.

Then a rough scratchiness down the side of his face. "Hey-" If Lion were any smaller, Stars could have fended him off. But as it was, he was nearly powerless to stop the giant cat that had just decided Stars needed to be groomed.

"Well, your tongue's not phasing through my hair," Stars muttered, distracted by the same glow that happened when he touched his own hair. "That's one question answered, at least."

Lion made a chirp of agreement, settling his chin on Stars's head and licking at his ear. "Hey, stop that, it tickles," Stars complained, waving his hands to swat Lion away. Lion batted down a hand and nipped it, causing more complaints and a bit of sulking from Stars.

With a sigh, Stars leaned his head back on Lion's mane, letting himself be moved about until Lion was comfortable. It was nice like this. He felt drowsy, not an intensely undeniable sleepiness like before, but a warm laziness. He wasn't being compelled to sleep, but something in him-probably Steven's human half-didn't want to move, even when he heard the creak of a screen door. "Connie?" Stars murmured.

"Stay there!" she answered, her footsteps rhythmically slapping against the floor as she ran off to another room. Stars craned his neck up, puzzled. Only to be caught off guard by a flash of light.

"Agh! What?" he said, rubbing his eyes and pushing off of a similarly stunned Lion.

Connie giggled, waving a developing strip of old-fashioned instant film. Stars could see his own face, getting jolted awake and frantically flailing through Lion's lit-up mane. " _That_ picture's going in a scrapbook."


	19. Chapter 19

Stars laced and unlaced his fingers tightly. He was surrounded by gems. They were all friendly; Steven was close with all of them and Lars had at least met most of them. It didn't make it easier to relax. Immediately to his left was a bored blue-skinned gem who had pulled out her cell phone, playing some match-three game and not even pretending to care about the meeting. Stars remembered her name easily: Lapis Lazuli. On Stars's right was Peridot. Stars was keeping his cool around her, even if he had stiffened up and was trying to pretend she wasn't there.

Connie sat cross-legged beside Peridot, Lion licking himself on her right. Amethyst and Pearl sat on the couch opposite Stars, while Garnet stood nearby, watching everyone and probably figuring out the various ways this could go wrong. Stars gulped. He wasn't in trouble, far from it, but being the center of attention like this made it feel like he was.

"It's time now, Stars," Garnet said. Everyone but Lapis Lazuli looked up. "To find out if this invention works properly, you need to unfuse."

"Right! Right!" Stars said hurriedly, hoping he hadn't appeared to be zoning out. Still playing with his fingers, he frowned and tried to focus on unfusing. For so many gem fusions it seemed to be a reflex, almost involuntary, but seconds passed and nothing happened.

Stars stomped down his panic, turning to look at Peridot, who was scrutinizing two bracelets in her hands. Remember what she did to Lars, he told himself. Remember what she looked like when she tried to kill you. At the same time, he was fondly hit with nostalgia for when Peridot had first joined the Crystal Gems. She'd been an enemy, but never a real threat to Steven's safety, whether he'd realized it at the time or not.

Those memories were conflicting! Hard to deal with simultaneously! Why wasn't it working to split him apart when he needed to not be fused-

Garnet had opened her mouth to say something right as Steven and Lars fell apart from each other in a flash of light. Steven slid down to the ground to make more room on the couch as Lars winced.

He wasn't going to try to figure out why that had been so hard. He was way, way too drowsy now.

"Now that that's finally done," Peridot announced, more to the entire group than to Lars alone, "We're ready to begin the experiment!"

"Please don't call it that," Lars said tiredly. "What do these things do again?"

"Don't you remember our conversation about gem destabilizers and the potential positive uses?" Peridot chided. "I've finished the prototype!" She held the bracelets above her head in the air dramatically. They were bands that were maybe an inch thick and a few inches wide, black with greenish-yellow lines on the open cuff, and a gap just small enough that it would be hard to slip over a wrist. In the gap on the cuff, a tiny, dully golden orb floated, seemingly held up by nothing. "When turned on, each piece should form an electrical circuit and shock you. For a gem, it might destabilize their form, true. But for something like you, Lars, when near a pulse point, it should easily make up for your deficit in energy. If this proves successful, I'll be making a collar for Steven's Lion as well!" Peridot said proudly. "Much like my former limb enhancers or human disability aid technology, these 'Stabilizers' should allow you to function with ease!"

By the time Peridot stopped yammering, she was apparently expecting applause. Lapis was the only one who acquiesced, playing her mobile game with one hand and quietly slapping her thigh with the free hand to make a lackluster clapping sound.

"I'll give it a try," Lars said uncertainly, reaching out to take one. "How do I turn it on?"

Peridot chose to put one of them on for him, sliding his hand through and tightening it with a twisting motion. "First of all, you don't turn it on until both of them are on a wrist. Secondly, there's something else we need to be aware of before we test this."

"Y-yeah? What's that?"

"Don't worry," she reassured him, putting the second stabilizer bracelet on his other wrist. "It's perfectly safe! For you ."

"Wha-"

"You see," Peridot said as she deftly tapped the dull golden orbs at the same time, one with each pointer finger. They started glowing, and with a humming sound, became bright electric lights. As soon as she'd made contact with them, Peridot raised her hands and moved away. "I haven't had the opportunity to test the voltage with any gems because of the danger. Destabilizers are built to overload a gem's hard-light construct with electrical energy and force it apart. I haven't read any reports on the minimum amount of energy a gem can withsta-"

Lapis interrupted her. "She means you might shock any gem you touch and destroy their bodies. Like how humans apparently aren't supposed to touch power lines." It worried Lars that Lapis's exasperation seemed to come from experience, but he nearly jumped out of his skin when Lapis reached over to grab his forearm anyway. "Nah. A little buzz. It's fine," she said in the same tone of voice.

"Are you saying you thought that would destroy your form?! " Lars shrieked.

Lapis shrugged.

"It didn't," Peridot added with pride.

Garnet adjusted her glasses. "I knew it wouldn't."

"So it's a success!" Connie cheered while Lars looked around the circle, trying to find one person who thought what had just happened wasslightly odd. He came up empty.

"How do you feel, Lars?" Steven said at his feet, patting Lars's leg.

"Oh, right. Uh, I feel…" Lars trailed off, tilting his head as he thought. "I feel fine? Lion, how 'bout you?"

Lars's face got hot as he realized he was actually expecting a response, but Lion did indeed answer by yawning loudly and settling his head on Connie's lap.

"I'll have Lion's prototype collar ready by tomorrow morning," Peridot told them.

Steven scooted over to Lion, squishing his cheeks and making cutesy noises about how handsome Lion would look. "Make it pink!" he said excitedly. "Bright pink, with a black bow! So it looks like he's going to a fancy dinner party all the time?"

Peridot replied with a nonplussed "...I'll try," and Lars was left feeling like he'd dodged a bullet.

Thank the stars Steven didn't make his fashion choices.


	20. Chapter 20

For the first time since returning to Beach City, Lars was officially on his own.

It wasn't as though he'd gotten kicked out of Steven and Connie's home or that he wasn't welcome at the temple anymore. But to be walking around with Lion doing the same, he no longer needed to be fused with Steven or asleep in comfy pink limbo. He was his own man again. Connie even gave Lars a hand-me-down last-generation cell phone (they still all looked like fancy glass coasters to Lars, so it wasn't as though he minded), just in case they needed to get in touch in a pinch.

Sure, if he thought about it, there were probably even more reunions Lars should be seeking out, or ways he could help Steven out with the Homeworld thing.

But the ability to get a little breathing room? At this point, that was invaluable.

Lars stooped to his toes and prodded the water under his feet. It was solid like glass, though not as hard, and the tide rolled underneath him as if to prevent him from ever keeping his balance. Lars crouched down cross-legged. Beach City's coastline waters were clear, but not clear enough to see the sand below him from here. He could spot silhouettes of small fish if he squinted.

The way he was bobbing up and down on the water compared to the shore, Lars felt like a beachball. He probably looked silly, but there was no one to point and laugh at him at the moment. He stayed there, deeply inhaling the salty air that he'd missed so much on Homeworld, until he got bored enough to push himself to his feet and pad back to the beach.

Lars almost tripped on a rock, which temporarily jutted above the water due to the trough from a rising wave for no other reason than to get in his way, when he heard a soft vocalization right next to him. It was a wordless, haunting tune. Lars spun around like a dog chasing its tail until he located the source of the sound: his new-used phone.

Yeesh, he was really glad no one saw that.

Lars snagged the glass coaster out of his pocket and started fiddling with it, guessing at where an "answer" or "on" button would be. As difficult as the phone's symbols were to interpret, at least tech developers seemed to account for a wide range of user error, since he managed to hear a "Hello?" on the other end pretty quickly.

"Hey? This is Lars," Lars said, sitting back down atop the water in the shallows.

"We know, Lars," Steven answered, amused. "We can see you!"

"Who's we, and why can't I see you?" Lars shook the phone. An image sporadically projected out, but having no flat surface to project on, flashed a few times before disappearing.

"Did you try recalibrating it?" Connie was there too.

"How the heck am I supposed to do that?"

"We'll show you some other time," Steven said. "This is more important than phones! You gotta check out this message we just got from Yellow Diamond!"

" The Yellow Diamond?" Yeah, Steven was working with bigwigs now, but what, did they just call each other on the weekends to chat?

"Technically her Pearl," Connie corrected. "But we've been corresponding with them about what you told us, Lars."

"About what her Peridot did," Steven added.

Lars felt scandalized. He was glad he was sitting down. "Why would you do that?! It doesn't matter anymore, it was years ago, it's over!"

"Uh-uh," Steven replied in the negative. His voice was soft. It probably wouldn't have been if Lars hadn't been acting like such a baby around Peridot, Lars decided unhappily. "This is a big deal. Obviously that they were trying to hurt a captive human while we were discussing treaties, but-even more than that. From what you told us, they wanted to figure out how you worked for military reasons."

"Yeah, so?" Lars leaned back against the rolling waves. It felt like how he assumed a waterbed would. He squinted, turning away from the sun. "It's Yellow Diamond. Like ninety times out of a hundred, what she's doing is military somehow, right?"

Connie chimed in. "That's true, but this is dangerous. Homeworld has other rose quartzes with healing powers."

"Uh-huh. But best case for fighting, they can only make one pink zombie at a time, right?"

"Right," said Connie. "So picture this. You're Yellow Diamond. Your resources on Homeworld are dwindling. You're a colonial empire whose entire civilization relies on constant wartime expansion and the creation of new gems on planets that you take over. You want an unstoppable standing army even in peacetime, just so no one messes with you, and in case you want to take over any planets later. You following?"

"Sure. Yellow Diamond likes bossing gems around and taking over stuff and she's kinda a jerk," Lars said.

"Right. Then you find out about this new gem power that affects organic alien life. For every rose quartz you make off-planet, you can get a free bonus immortal soldier. Not just immortal, but one whose form doesn't poof! Maybe they're not as strong as a gem would be-"

" Hey ," he interrupted, offended.

Connie continued on unhindered. "But they can get stabbed or crushed or smothered or whatever without their form disappearing. If you got enough of them, you could win by sheer force of numbers alone."

"Not even the Breaking Point could probably hurt them," Steven added. Lars didn't know what that meant, but from the way Steven said it, he decided he didn't want to ask.

"I get it. Lots of soldiers," Lars said. "It'd be a strategic advantage?"

"Or at least an option," Connie said.

"We're not worried about that, so much," said Steven. "We're worried about recruitment."

"Huh?"

"Think about it! Imagine an entire army of bloodthirsty rose quartzes descending from the sky with one goal."

"To… kill a human being," Lars realized.

"And bring them back to life to fight for them," Connie said.

"There are plenty of humans who admire gems," Steven said quietly. "Plenty who would be soldiers if there were no other option. Plenty of humans who could be forced to fight in any number of ways."

They were all silent, Lars only able to hear distant static on the phone and the water rippling its way onto the beach nearby. Somewhere a seagull cried.

"But Yellow Diamond's willing to negotiate about it," Lars eventually said.

Steven made an affirmative noise. "We've got the chance to convince her that it's not worth it. Now, or even in a few thousand years, whether or not the treaty's still around. That making people like you into soldiers wouldn't be good for anybody."

"Right," Lars said, exhaling sharply. "So she wants to talk to you on Homeworld about it?"

Connie said, "No! Well, yes, but you're coming too. As long as you're willing."

This was insane. "Yellow Diamond wants to talk to Stars?" Lars asked with a frown.

"No, Lars," Steven told him. "She wants to talk to you."


	21. Chapter 21

The bracelets would stay off, they had decided right away when met up at the temple to strategize. Lars would still be wearing them, but he would turn them off for the duration of the meeting. As Pearl had explained, they needed every appearance of Lars being weak and inconvenient-not as a person, she'd hastened to add, but as a soldier . Lars reluctantly agreed.

But that also meant he should keep wearing them on his wrists when they weren't in use, to make sure no one was suspicious when they were.

Lars had asked Steven about the plan. "Isn't that kinda like lying? Last I remember you were the biggest goody-two shoes in the galaxy."

"I was just a kid back then," Steven admitted. "Life, and this politics stuff especially, is complicated. Like Mayor Dewey used to say."

Lars saw that Steven was disheartened by the question, so he nudged him sharply with an elbow. "Oh, yeah, uniter of worlds, saver of millions, with magic Rapunzel tears and a bright pink shield. You've gone sooo punk."

That got Steven to laugh, which felt weird, because usually it was Steven making those jokes for other people. Like Lars was starting to understand what made Steven tick after sharing a body with him.

Lars pushed the thought away sheepishly. "So we're going to travel on the way there as Stars. Shouldn't we practice being Stars with the bracelets on real quick? Just to make sure it doesn't shock you."

"Hmm." Steven reached over to touch the stabilizing bracelets. Lars let out a noise of alarm but Steven didn't react. "It doesn't do much for me. But maybe it could shock us when we fuse-or even make us unfuse if it got turned on on accident. It wouldn't make sense for it to hurt us, but it's still a risk."

"Text Peridot," Lars suggested. "Check with her before you try?"

"Softening up to her, huh?" Steven laughed. He pulled out his phone and started trailing a finger on its screen.

"I thought you were texting her," Lars said flatly instead of answering. The phone took Steven's illegible scribbling and reformatted it into legible text as it was sent off, then its screen lit up green.

"She responded already!" Steven read the message aloud. "'Should be safe. Record it when you do it. Stop if anything hurts. I'll check up on you in five minutes.' Then a bunch of pictures of alien faces and cats, but I don't think those actually mean anything,"

"Guess we're really doing this again, huh?" Lars said, standing.

Steven pocketed the phone. "Just for a minute! Assuming we can unfuse that time."

Lars took Steven's hands. "Yeah, what was up with that taking so long?"

"I think I figured it out." They were doing those same practiced steps from before, one-two-three, one-two-three. "We unfused the first time because we disagreed about something. So then when we needed to unfuse again, we tried to disagree on purpose. But we were both agreeing about disagreeing, so we were still agreeing, and it didn't work."

" Huh ?"

"Like… if fusion is a conversation, we disagreed but we were still talking about it. But once we both decided that we wanted to be unfused, that we had somewhere else to be, that ended the conversation the right way." Careful steps, limbs starting to sway a bit more loosely.

"So doesn't that mean we shouldn't have to do all this weird dancing to fuse?" Lars asked. "Shouldn't we be able to fuse just because we want to?" His steps slowed.

Steven hummed. "Well, I definitely want to fuse with you right now, Lars."

"And I…" Saying it so plainly made it all come out in a rush. "IwannafusewithyoutooSteven."

Without thinking about why, they both lay their hand on each other's chest, and the soothing light enveloped them both as their bodies transformed into one.

Stars looked around the room, then down at his wrists. Bracelets were still there, good. And they were both functional, all lit up in neon. So he shouldn't feel tired.

He didn't feel tired.

N̛̟̳͍̥͓̺̹̱̊̆͗̿͌̓͊͡ơ̧̻̝͈̳͎̈́͑͑̇̃̉͢͢͡͠͝t̸̢̛̛̘̫͖̦̠͛̑̊̕͟͡ ȁ̡̫̣͚͑̑͊̈͜t̶̗̟̹̙̰̳͈̻̐̔̉̂̽͂͠ å̶̰̞͚̙̣̱̱͙͊̊̏̿͠ĺ̵̨̯̗̻̞͎͕̳̚̕͘͠l̷̜̯͉͎̺̞̬͑͂̔̄̊͘͘.̵͓̱̰̬̫̪̦̳̮͉̃͛̌̍̆̑̈́

In fact, he felt fantastic.

Stars ran to the window of the beach house, smushing his face against it to see if Peridot was on her way yet. It felt like it had been a good twenty minutes! She must have been running late. Bouncing in place, Stars decided he wanted to get lunch. After all, Lars might not like food (and a tiny bit of him was disappointed that Lars had apparently hated Steven's eggs) but Steven loved it, so why not see, right?

He started by piling a sandwich on the counter, but abruptly decided that it would be much more interesting if the sandwich were stacked to the ceiling like in the cartoons. So he made a multi-decker popcorn-lasagna-balogna-swiss-mustard-leftover-burrito-ice-cream-cookie-mayonaise-graham-cracker-soggy-onion-ring-and-fry-bits sandwich out of two whole loaves of bread, then started taking pictures from every angle to commemorate his Great Mount Sandwich.

"Uh, dude?" Amethyst asked, peering around the mass of slightly-edibles to find a grinning Stars. "What're you doing?"

"What's it look like I'm doing? I'm breaking the worldwide record for hugest sandwich ever created!"

"Wha-at! I want in on this action!"

"Seriously?" He'd forgotten to push record before, so he did so and set up the phone for live coverage of this historical event.

"Yeah! Watch me hork that thing down like it's nothing."

Stars whooped. "A-me-thyst! A-me-thyst! A-me-thyst!"

True to the gem's word, she positioned herself slightly beneath the table, stretching back on two of the stools. She shapeshifted her arms to be longer and her mouth to be a bit bigger, and calmly proceeded to cram the four-and-a-half-foot tall sandwich in her mouth.

Stars was positively screaming in adoration like he was in a crowd watching the Puma wrestle again. "Amethyst World Champ 2037!" he hollered.

"Oh, I bet I can beat that," Pearl called down from further in the beach house. But Pearl stepped in to analyze the situation and, upon seeing Amethyst with engorged stomach and who-knows-what-sauce all over her face, and a butterknife-clenching Stars jumping on the table itself in celebration (his head periodically hitting the ceiling), Pearl re-evaluated. She turned a 180 and walked away.

"C'mon, you gotta get in on this!" Amethyst called out to her, then belched loudly. "Stars and I are throwing a pa-ar- tay and this is your last chance for an invite!"

"They're doing something, all right," Peridot said, slamming open the door without knocking. She seemed more intrigued than angry. "So you have both the bracelets running. Interesting. I thought you would know enough to start off with just one."

Stars froze in his celebratory dance and toppled to the floor, crashing a plate in the process. "Huh? Is that bad? I feel awesome!"

"I'm sure you do," Peridot said as she walked past the kitchen table and swiped the cell phone, flicking through clips of their recording. She set it back on the table. "It appears you've gotten an energy boost that a full-gem wouldn't be able to withstand, though for a half-gem, it might be healthy in moderation. Do you happen to know your standard pulse?"

"I did actually take that once," Stars said, raising a hand from the floor to show that he was fine. "It was like… ba-bum! ba-bum! ba-bum! ba-bum! "

"A rate of approximately ninety beats per minute," Peridot said with a nod. "Perhaps eighty, if I account for how fast you're talking now."

"I'm talking fast?" Stars didn't think he was talking fast.

"Here," Peridot said, grabbing his wrist below the table. "Keep your mouth shut for a minute."

"How come? What're you-"

" Shh!" Stars felt a spike of fear he'd been able to push away around Peridot before and obeyed.

"And right now your pulse is approximately a hundred and sixty beats per minute," Peridot concluded after some silent counting.

"Is that bad? That sounds kinda bad."

"No, no. Not in the short term. I would compare it to, hm." Peridot tapped her chin. "Maybe… A dosage of approximately 800 milligrams of caffeine?"

Stars scrambled up, starting to pace around the table. "800 whats of what?"

"Honestly, you've both lived on this planet longer than I have. How could you not know the metric system or one of the most common human-affecting drugs on Earth?"

"I know at least one of those. Just not what they mean together?" Stars questioned, braiding and unbraiding his hair on the side as he paced.

"Let me put it this way. Steven sometimes drinks those 16-ounce cups of coffee from Big Donut chains when he goes out of town, right? Those each have approximately 200 milligrams of caffeine. So think of it as though you just guzzled 4 large cups of coffee."

Ah. Stars had been wondering why the world was vibrating a little bit.

"Maybe we should unfuse before we get going to Homeworld then," Stars suggested.

" You think?"

Amethyst laughed from her spot on the table stools. "No way, man! You've got diplomacy superpowers now! Talk so fast she can't argue her way out of anything! Sign 20 treaties then peace, you're out, and she'll be all, 'I have no idea what's going on because he did all that in two minutes!' And bring me with, I wanna watch!"

Stars remembered that from Steven's experience, listening to Garnet on diplomacy missions was usually a Bad Idea. With a dramatic sigh of grief, Stars let himself unfuse again.

"Wow, hah," Lars said, putting a hand to his head. He hadn't felt anything like that in as long as he could remember. Like he'd been color-blind for years and right after getting his color vision back, someone started flashing neon signs at him erratically for an hour straight. "That wassomething ."

"Heck yeah it was!" Steven said before wobbling up the stairs to his old room. "Ugh… What'd you call this, Peridot? A caffeine crash?"

"You could use my bracelets!" Lars called up after him. "Wean yourself off!"

Steven waved him off, crash-landing face-first in a pile of blankets and pillows. Snores came muffled from the pillow shoved over his mouth.

"So." Lars turned to the two gems in the kitchen and shrugged. "Guess we're putting off Homeworld another day or two?"


	22. Chapter 22

This wasn't as nerve wracking as he thought it'd be, Stars decided.

Not talking to Yellow Diamond; that, he was sure, would be the single most terrifying moment of his existence. When he unfused, it would most likely be involuntary.

But taking the spacecraft there? Not as bad as he expected.

Since it had been built to accommodate a large number of gems of as many sizes and shapes as possible, it was more than roomy enough for Stars and the Crystal Gems who'd decided to accompany him to Homeworld. Amethyst insisted on coming, seemingly just for sight-seeing and meeting other amethysts. Pearl and Garnet said they wouldn't be allowed into Yellow Diamond's presence when the negotiating happened, but they'd tag along for Stars's sake.

Stars wasn't sure if he'd know how to prepare for something this big, but Steven remembered all the hoops to jump through to make sure paperwork and meeting times and landings were approved.

Despite the private nature of their mission, they had decided on taking public transportation as the most reliable and quick way of getting off-planet. Often, the ships were still packed full of immigrants on their way to Earth, but on the way back to Homeworld they were nearly empty. Stars supposed that was a good sign for the Center (which Steven still refused to budge on changing the name of, insisting it had "historical importance").

Once they'd strapped in, the gems and Stars spent a few minutes discussing strategy for the meeting. "Keep in mind," Pearl told Stars, "Right now, your biggest weapon is publicity. We have enough proof right now to show evidence that Yellow Diamond's secretly been running a superweapon development program that she's kept hidden from the public. But stars, don't make threats. Just remind her of the unpalatable consequences if her gems lost trust in her ability to maintain a treaty."

"Shady stuff," Stars muttered, pressing himself in his seat.

"Our peace with Homeworld is very fragile," Garnet told him from his side. "Neither side wants to put it into jeopardy. In that sense, you and Yellow Diamond share a goal. Work towards that when you speak."

Stars fiddled with his stabilizers, which were of course turned off. "Garnet, your future vision. What's the best and worst possible outcome here?"

"The best one is that Yellow Diamond falls over herself apologizing to Lars and makes up for it by establishing diplomatic representatives directly from her to humans on Earth."

"And the worst?"

Garnet adjusted her glasses. "Thousands of years of galactic war."

"Garnet!" Pearl snapped at her. "Don't scare him!" She looked over at Stars between them, delicate fingers patting his hand. "You'll do fine, Stars. Technically, thousands of years of galactic war is a possible outcome of nearly anything we do."

"Good job being reassuring!" Amethyst called back from a seat in front of them.

"Thank you, Amethyst!" Pearl answered chirpily over a chiming noise.

The doors were closing. Hoo boy. They were really doing this.

As disorienting and intense as the space flight was, Stars managed to hold himself together. He was only barely shaking when the ship's door chimed again, opened, and said, "Thank you for using the Homeworld public transit system. Welcome home. Please watch your step as you exit the vehicle."

He heard Amethyst mocking the sentiment of this planet being "home," but to Stars, that's almost what it felt like. He wouldn't call Homeworld his home, but neither would he say he lived on Earth-a minor disconnect between the two people he was made of. Stars stepped off the shop, marvelling at the streets Lars had so rarely been on for fear of discovery but knew so well.

"No time for sightseeing," Pearl said, tugging at the inside of Stars's elbow. "We need to get to the capital's yellow spire. Now, let's see, things have changed so much in the last five thousand years..."

Stars made a disappointed noise in the back of his throat but turned to the yellow section of the capital.

Pearl's head twisted to follow him. "You know where it is?"

"Well, yeah," Stars said. "It's all geometric organized, so it's not hard. The spires are in the middle of each diamond's quarter of the capitol, right? And all the yellow buildings are that way."

"Ahah, right!" Amethyst said, trotting beside him to keep up with his long stride. "Steven's only been here a few times but Lars knows this place like the back of his hand, huh?"

"He knows the back of it like the back of his hand," Stars corrected. "Remember, he tried to stay away from all the populated areas except for a few years there. Maybe after this, I can take you around to all the old haunts? It's been a little bit, but I know some quartzes who I bet you'd love."

"Yeah!" Amethyst pumped her fist in the air. "Stars tour! I wanna see the underside of glamour! Take me to the seediest parts of the capital!"

"Serious mission, you two," Garnet reminded them. Then she paused and added, "Stars, after this, don't take her there. It will not end well."

"That's probably smart," Stars mumbled. The "seediest parts of the capital" held a lot of dark stuff. Anything that came to mind when Amethyst said it wasn't a real option.

Homeworld's capital was laid out clearly, making all the important and fancy bits simple to find and fast to get to. Just a couple minutes of walking and they were staring up at a skyscraper-like yellow spire piercing the atmosphere. Still leading the way, Stars pushed the door open.

"State your name and purpose," a disembodied voice commanded him as soon as he stepped foot in the building. He held the door open behind him for the other gems and cleared his throat.

"Stars from Earth. I have a meeting with Yellow Diamond," he said in the most self-assured voice he could muster.

There was no answer, but the floor they stood on began to rumble. It started to rise in the air (nearly clipping Amethyst's heel in the process, forcing out an indignant "ow!" from her), going smoothly upwards for two minutes before slowing to a stop before an intricately-filigreed arched doorway.

No voice spoke to order them in, so Stars looked back and forth before stepping forward into a wide hall. It was ornate but not deep, opening up into a golden room that resembled a receptionist's office. In the back of it, arms behind her back, stood Yellow Diamond's Pearl.

"She's waiting for you," the pearl said, nose high in the air as she looked over the motley group. Pearl-their Pearl-sniffed in response. "You all can wait out here while she speaks to the Stars."

Based on Pearl's expression, Stars was almost glad to be escaping to talk to an interplanetary tyrant. It might be preferable to waiting in an empty room with nothing for the pearls to do but verbally snipe at each other.

"Okay, see you guys, wish me luck," Stars said to the crystal gems. He found himself sweating over every word out of his mouth after the fact based on nothing more than a frowning crease on the yellow pearl's forehead. Did needing luck make him sound weak? He needed Lars to come off as weak, but what about Steven? What were the perfect words here? Hoo boy.

The yellow pearl spoke to the air around them with a hint of disdain. "The fusion and earth allies have arrived, my diamond."

"I'm only interested in the fusion and its component gems for now," said a voice much too large to really be possible. "Send it in."

"Yes, my diamond." The yellow pearl tapped the wall and a section of it slid open invitingly. Intimidatingly. None of the crystal gems made a move to try to enter, and none of them said a word to Stars.

Stars gulped and, alone, entered Yellow Diamond's chamber.


	23. Chapter 23

"Fusion," Stars was called forward in an impatient tone. The moment where he stood in the doorway hung in the air, an eternity in itself as Stars furiously tried to think through his next moves. In the interim twenty years since Lars knew him in Beach City, Steven had learned to plan conversations strategically.

Yellow Diamond's voice was clipped. A sign of disrespect. Not something to take personally, but a power play he had to counter to keep control over the conversation. This meeting had to take place with Stars and Yellow Diamond considering themselves equals, or no real negotiation would happen.

Stars shakily breathed in and stepped forward. "My name is Stars," he said, trying to keep his tone level. Not insulted or insulting. Geez, this would really be a balancing act. "Thank you for meeting with me, Yellow Diamond." He didn't say "my diamond," since that was usually submissive. Shewasn't his diamond, anyway.

"Hmm." The humongous gem's eyes passed over Stars as golden light flooded over him. "An odd name."

Stars inclined his head, fighting not to sweat in the spotlight. "I'm made up of Steven Universe, a half-human half-gem, and Lars Barriga, who was once human. There's no gem name for human fusions, so on Earth we choose our names ourselves." Not a hundred percent accurate but Yellow Diamond wasn't really interested, he was sure.

"What a bizarre practice," Yellow Diamond said, lifting her hand in the air. The floor beneath Stars rose; he and the diamond could look each other in the eyes now. This was compliance on her part, to increase his stature so they could have an actual conversation. "I was told the former human's name was Larzite."

"You've been looking over your old files," Stars said with raised eyebrows. His fists were clenched on his knees. "The ones from Lars's interrogation. That was the only time his 'Larzite' name was entered in an official document."

Yellow Diamond couldn't deny the torture session now. Stars interpreted her blink as meaning that she hadn't noticed her slip of the tongue until his response. "He lied to gem authorities, then?" she asked loftily.

"Yellow Diamond," Stars said flatly. "Lars was captured against his will, taken from his home planet, presented as physical evidence in court, and then tossed out on your planet with no way of returning home. There is absolutely no law you can quote that would make him a criminal for misstating his name while being tortured by your peridot without just cause."

"Ugh." Yellow Diamond narrowed her eyes. Stars realized that, righteous anger or no, that wasn't the best way he could have phrased that. He needed to play nicer. So when Yellow Diamond waved a hand and said, "Unfuse. I want to examine this Lars himself," Stars nodded and obeyed.

When Lars found himself splayed out on the podium under Yellow Diamond's prying eyes, memories of the trial came rushing back in a way they hadn't when he was fused with Steven. He had none of the self-assurance, none of the diplomacy cred, none of the in-and-out knowledge of how the top echelon of gem society functioned. He was terrified, and when Yellow Diamond tilted her head and the pillars split into two, he was alone.

"Lars," Yellow Diamond said, her eyes sliding over to meet Lars's. They bored into him.

Hearing his own name come out of the mouth of this humongous godlike lady freaked him out, and he answered with a squeak of "Yeah?"

"What are you?"

Okay. He'd been asked this before, plenty of times. At least five times by Yellow Diamond's peridot herself. Lars pressed his lips together thinly, sorting out his thoughts. "At this point? You probably know as well as I do, m-my diamond." Shoot, he'd forgotten that Stars was avoiding the "my diamond" bit for a reason, even if it was what Lars was used to hearing when he lived on Homeworld. Too late now. "I only know what happened to me, and… and I'm sure that was in your files too. Cuz I told your peridot when she was zapping me."

"The files made only a passing mention to you being from Earth. In fact, they said you claimed to be an experimental gem from the Earth colony ."

"Yeah. I was lying. Because…" Lars looked over to Steven, who was watching him intently. If he was trying to send a message, to tell him how to act or what to say, Lars didn't get it.

Lars trailed off, coming up blank.

What was he supposed to say?

Why was he here again, in this living nightmare?

Why did Yellow Diamond want to talk to him ?

Why was Steven making him do this, and why had he agreed?!

To keep Yellow Diamond from trying to make a pink zombie army. Right. Which meant each and every answer that Lars gave needed to sound accurate, confusing, but most of all, weak .

Even though every instinct in his gut said to try to cover this up, to try to sound tough in the face of a glaring diamond.

Run away, or face it with fake bravado. That was the only way Lars knew how to survive.

"Uhm…" he said, stalling.

Yellow Diamond crossed her arms, impatient, and clearly beginning to think that Lars was too stupid to answer. He wanted to run his mouth, to self-righteously rage against the atrocities committed against him by her peridot, to scream about how much Homeworld sucked and everything sucked and Yellow Diamond sucked and being a zombie sucked and Lars sucked. To salvage some of his quickly shattering dignity.

Lars shakily took in a breath and let it out. "I lied because I was scared," he admitted, wrapping his arms around his knees. If he were saying this to Steven, it'd be easier, like a real confession to a friend. But this was just making him look and sound like a wimp, and it was making him queasy. He hoped he wasn't being recorded in here.

"You're immortal," Yellow Diamond answered right away, unimpressed with Lars's revelation. "You couldn't even be injured. What did you have to be scared of?"

"I didn't know that at the time!" Lars forced his own head up to meet Yellow Diamond's eyes. "You heard what Stars said. I was a human and I'd just gotten alien abducted and shoved in a bubble and chased all over and exploded and resurrected and-" His words were running together. He forced himself to speak slower. He was getting exhausted already, separated from Steven and without his stabilizers on. "I didn't know what she could do to me."

"But you escaped your interview with my peridot," Yellow Diamond said. She used the word interview like she still wasn't admitting it was anything bad, Lars realized angrily.

"Yeah, on a fluke! She didn't know that I wouldn't poof if she left me in that big electro chamber thing. And after I got out, you know why 'Larzite' isn't in any documents after that? Why you don't have any more logs about a pink zombie immortal human thing? Because I got scared again and spent the next years trying to stay away from gem society entirely !" Lars scrubbed at his face with his forearm. "And you know how I got back to Earth? I wasn't even trying to." He heard Steven softly gasp. "I just got picked up and carried away on the spaceship with a crowd of gems. I don't know why you're interested in me because no matter what I am species-wise, I'm not even remotely interesting to someone like you. That's a promise."

Lars felt all the shame of his own cowardice heaped on his shoulders. Steven said his name quietly while Yellow Diamond stared Lars up and down, evaluating. Analyzing. Boring into him. Lars felt raw and vulnerable and disgusting .

Slowly, Yellow Diamond waved her hand. "I see," she said curtly. Steven and Lars's pillars began to descend to the floor. "I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. Steven Universe, I believe we will have an ample amount of information to discuss at the quarterly international delegate convention?"

Steven nodded, clearly reigning in a smile, and made the diamond salute as a courtesy. "Yes. Please keep me updated on any further developments in your research about Earth."

Yellow Diamond gave Steven a double finger gun. "Thank you. Kindly see yourselves out, and we'll keep in touch."

Lars was still shaky as Steven pulled him into the hallway by his arm. "Wha-what was-?!"

"I told her it was the traditional Earth salute." Steven gave him an encouraging smile, then a finger-gun with a laugh. His other hand went to Lars's heart.

Lars laughed shakily and let himself fall into the fusion again.

Time to get off this planet.


	24. Chapter 24

Stars met up with Amethyst, Pearl, and Garnet in the same lobby as before. The air held terse silence, with Amethyst looking bored, Garnet crossing her arms, and Pearl appearing huffy and as physically far away from the other pearl as the room allowed.

"How did it go?" Garnet asked.

Stars rubbed his neck nervously. "Well! I think. We should talk about it later." When there weren't potentially unfriendly ears listening.

"Thank you for responding to your summons," Yellow Diamond's peridot said snobbishly. "If Yellow Diamond has need of you, we'll contact you again."

"Same goes for her," Stars said, trying to sound perky. That was Steven's influence, trying to regain an equal standing with the diamond again after that humiliation. "C'mon, guys."

They were silent on the long elevator ride down the tower, leaving Stars to muddle through his feelings helplessly. On hearing Lars's confession, Steven had been proud, even though Lars had felt awful. It made his head hurt to think about why.

They exited the tower, and finally someone spoke. "All right!" Amethyst piped up. "Time for you to unfuse and give us that tour, right?"

"Oh?" Stars laughed uncertainly. "I dunno, I thought you guys liked Stars better than Lars." He felt bad for saying it. That was probably the part of him that was Steven, being guilty for giving a voice to Lars's insecurity-silly after what had just happened.

"We don't really know Lars yet," Pearl said uncertainly. "We weren't sure if we were supposed to get close. Normally we gems try to stay out of human affairs unless R-Steven brings someone to the temple."

"We weren't sure if Lars counted," Garnet said, glancing at Stars. "Humans tend to find us uncomfortable to be around. We didn't want to impose."

"Lars finds _everyone_ uncomfortable to be around," Stars said with a short laugh, hugging himself loosely. "Except Steven and the off-colors."

"It's up to you," Garnet told him. They were still walking, further away from the spire than before and starting to see a few sky-blue buildings in front of them. They weren't even in Yellow Diamond's part of the capital anymore.

Stars chuckled. "Fuse, unfuse. Fuse, unfuse. I need to thank Peridot for those bracelets, since without them, this would be exhausting." He unfused without protest, with Lars managing to keep his footing for once as they walked. The gems came to a halt, seeing Lars in his now-natural environment for the first time.

Lars spread his arms, a crooked grin on his face. This wasn't so bad. He didn't know the gems, but he knew them through Stars. It was harder to be intimidated by them. "Amethyst. What'd you wanna see first?"

The gems were staring at him, not hostile, but strangely. Lars shifted his weight from side to side, foot to foot, lowering his arms and tapping his stabilizers on. Steven was watching their faces too. "Obviously the pink quarter of the capital is kinda defunct nowadays, but I think you guys know more about the reasons why than I do. I've always preferred the blue part of the city, myself, on the rare times I went topside. I kinda wanna bring you to the Kindergarten we lived in most of the time, but I wouldn't want to compromise it in case someone recognized you and followed us, but then again I'm pretty sure the off-colors are all on Earth now so maybe it doesn't matter, and the robonoids always found us pretty easy either way." He was rambling, trying to fill up the silence and getting no feedback from the gems, until Amethyst perked up at the word "Kindergarten."

"Wait a sec, since when do they have Kindergartens on Homeworld?" she asked, intrigued.

Lars waved them forward in the direction of the nearest tunnel entrance. "Since forever? No one told me the history of the place. But I can show you where we'd hang out most of the time?"

"Aw yeah! Spelunking with Lars! Let's go find some gem holes, baby!"

"Maybe don't, uh, say it like that-"

Steven laughed with Amethyst now that the tension was broken. "Where is it, Lars?" he asked.

"If we keep walking for like five minutes this way, there'll be a tunnel. Lotta tunnels in his planet."

Pearl was going up ahead now too, commenting on some of the geological structure and speculating on the structural integrity of this part of the city now that she knew about hidden tunnels. Lars wasn't leading them anymore for the moment, which he was fine with. It was just him and Garnet toward the back of the group. Garnet rested a heavy hand on Lars's shoulder. He stiffened; for a split second there, he'd thought she was trying an alien death grip. But she was smiling softly.

"Thank you, Lars," Garnet said, tapping her visor. It disappeared, revealing three multi-colored eyes. "I couldn't see what was happening in there, but from how Steven's acting…" They both watched Steven chatting animatedly with Amethyst and Pearl about the upcoming "tour." "You did what you needed to do."

Lars's eyebrows creased up. "I'm not sure," he said, shoving his hands in his pants pockets. "All I said was a bunch of stuff about how scared I was. I don't think there's any politics how-to guide that says 'Step 1: Convince opponent you're a little baby.'"

"From what little I've seen of Earth politicians, I'd be surprised if there isn't," Garnet said without a hint of humor. "But consider the bigger picture. What's best to do in a situation depends entirely _on_ that situation. Make a minor change to a scenario and suddenly, the right thing to do can be completely altered. And the right choice depends on who's the one doing it. What you did might not have been the right thing for me to do or Steven to do in your place, but I'm certain it was the right thing for Lars to do."

Her eyes looked serious. Lars was about to ask how she'd know, but stopped himself. "Duh. Future vision," he muttered. "You've seen all kinds of possible outcomes and how to get there, huh?"

Garnet looked surprised briefly, but her expression settled into a pleased one. "You know us through Steven," she said, and it wasn't a question.

Lars nodded sharply. "Yeah. I'm, uh, I'm sorry, maybe that invades your privacy since I know all this stuff you didn't tell me. We weren't really thinking about it at the time."

" _Never_ apologize for fusing with someone you love when it hurt no one and it made you happy," Garnet responded, swiping a hand over her face. The visor had returned. "Speaking of future vision, mine tells me that we'll miss your tunnel if we keep talking."

"Oh! Oh, right!" Lars jogged on ahead, forgetting to thank her as he waved to the others. (So weird to have someone with future vision and not slightly-in-the-past vision!) "Wait, guys! It's right here!" He dragged aside a boulder that covered the entrance, not for the sake of hiding from sentient gems, but as a simple flimsy prop to impede the robonoids. He dropped into the tunnel with a practiced ease.

The gems had heard him call but didn't see him enter, apparently, as he impatiently had to pull himself back up and poke his torso out from the hole, waving. "Since when are you guys such slowpokes?"

They all piled into the tunnel, Lars pointing out landmarks as they went, and Steven and the gems marvelling and questioning when appropriate. But a voice stopped Lars, and he shushed them all, holding out a hand to keep them from going forward.

"...oice was that, I'm sure I heard someone. Oh, if only the others were here, I could do something, but if it's a robo-"

Lars cupped his hands around his mouth. "HEY! IT'S ME, LARS! DON'T FREAK OUT! I BROUGHT SOME FRIENDS!" His voice echoed down the tunnel, reaching the speaker. "YOU SHOULD COME OUT AND MEET 'EM!"

There was no verbal response. At the end of the tunnel, a maroon hand clenched around the floor, clearly someone climbing up from below. Then a dark-gloved hand. Then a maroon hand again, and another gloved one.

Lars turned around to his tour group, beaming as the gem nervously climbed into the tunnel behind him. "Amethyst, Pearl, Garnet, Steven-meet Rhodonite!"


	25. Chapter 25

"Lars didn't have time to get his things, huh? He seems excited to go pack it all up."

"None of us did. Those ships, they left fast. Too fast! We had to either leave or get left behind!"

"Yeah, I just sort of found that out. A lot of things we still haven't had the chance to tell each other." A frown. "Like that you and I met before, recently, I mean. What did you want to talk about, Rhodonite? Why didn't you want him to hear it?"

"I needed to tell you about Lars." Guilt clouded her voice. "I mean, not that he's not dead, you know that already obviously. But I needed to tell you what he'd been doing since you saw him right after he turned pink. And about your lovely Center."

"Right, the Refugee Center. How come you're not still back there?"

"I went. I tried to stay there, I really did! It's a beautiful building. You did a nice job. But all those gems! You said it would be a safe haven but I could still feel them judging me. Judging Ruby and Pearl. Even if they can't tell just by looking that I'm them, it's still obvious that I'm a fusion."

"Ruby?" Pearl sounded flabbergasted. " And Pearl ?"

"It's a long story! And you wouldn't be interested. Point is, I'm something they've never seen before. Even the nice ones were staring! And Lars can tell you how that feels: it 'sucks .'"

"Gosh, I'm sorry, Rhodonite… We're trying to educate gems there, but it's still so new to them."

"I know!" An exasperated sigh. "It's no one's fault. But I still didn't like it. I'm used to living down here in the Kindergarten. I guess I wasn't ready to move yet."

"If you do ever change your mind about living on Earth," a cool voice said, "You can have a place with us. A friend of Steven is a friend of ours."

A guffaw. "C'mon, Garnet! Steven's not the reason why you wanna hang out with her!"

"What? What's the real reason then? Do you want to do experiments on me? Are you going to try to study me like they did to Lars?!"

"No! No no no, Rhodonite." A placating gesture, hands raised.

Rhodonite was silent, breathing in sharply in understanding.

"Wow," Rhodonite finally said. "You're like me."

A grin. "You should see me fused with Pearl, here."

"Ahah! Yes, if she likes seeing you, she should see Sardonyx!"

"Or Alexandrite!"

"C'mon, guys, don't overwhelm her! Besides, she's friends with a seven -gem fusion. But Lars is gonna be done in a minute. Rhodonite, what did you want to say about him? What did he do while he was stuck on Homeworld?"

"What'd Lars do? What didn't he do?"

"Well, from what I knew of him as a human, I'm guessing: everything?"

" Amethyst ! Don't be rude! Even if you're probably right."

"Huh? No, no. He spent all that time after you left fighting the robonoids since he was the only one of us who couldn't be shattered. And did he tell you he lived on the surface? For a really long time! Walking around as an off-color!"

"He didn't tell us much about him fighting . He said he spent most of his time running with you."

"Oh, stars, that-no. He complained about running all the time but he's the only one of us who did something about it. He talked about you all the time, Steven."

"About… me?"

"Mhmm. Steven would do this, Steven said that, this sucks but Steven said it's okay to be afraid. Got to the point where for a while, we thought you were his version of a diamond or something. Which you gotta admit would explain how you could change his color so easily."

Steven was flattered to the point of blushing. "He… he didn't say anything like that."

"Mhmm! That Lars, always talking about how much of a 'wimp' and 'coward' he was. But he got whisked away to another planet not just once, but twice. And he stayed and stuck through it." She turned her head, watching him slowly returning with an armful of knick-knacks from his old storage hole. "I really admire him."

"Yeah? Have you told him so?"

"I don't think I have to." A small smile, one of real admiration. "He might not technically be a gem, but… he's still the bravest gem I've ever known."

"Yeah." Amethyst was watching him too. "Gotta be brave to even try to carry all that crap on his own." And then she bellowed: "YO! LARS! NEED A HAND?", shifted into her wrestler persona, and ran off to help him.

A laugh. "We should go help too. And Rhodonite?"

"What?"

He reached out to squeeze her lower shoulder softly, briefly, as he walked past. "You should tell him."


	26. Chapter 26

"This is so bizarre," Lars said, reading over his summons again. (It was written in both English and the language Homeworld used, the latter of which being easy enough to read but way too hard to write legibly.) "I never even talked to Blue Diamond."

"She and Yellow Diamond are pretty close," Steven said from in front of him, engrossed in the RPG being projected on the beach house wall in front of them.

Lars stared at the fancy parchment he'd been given, as though reading it while sliding upside-down from his place on Steven's couch somehow made it more sensical. "So? She wasn't there for our meeting."

Steven tilted his controller, sticking his tongue out in concentration as he solved a rhythm puzzle onscreen. "Yellow Diamond was probably recording it."

"There weren't any cameras!"

Steven shrugged. "Gem technology. Even I don't get it most of the time." He failed at the puzzle and pressed his controller glass to start again.

"But what is this supposed to mean? She wrote it like a personal letter. It's Blue Diamond, Steven! Kind of a big deal! What's with all these Homeworld leaders buddying up to me? It's weird!"

"What exactly did she say again?"

Lars slid further down on the couch, so his head was pressed up against the floor and the letter draped down above his face. "'My dearest Lars of Earth'-my dearest, who starts a letter off that way?!"

"Maybe she's just being formal."

"I dunno, Steven. 'My dearest Lars of Earth, I was so pleased to hear of your bizarre existence-' Yeah, real formal-'as an off-color hybrid of gem and human.' Like she hasn't met an actual hybrid. 'I believe your in-between state may herald a new state of diplomatic relations between Homeworld and the Earth. There is so much I would love to discuss with you. Please respond before Earth's next lunar rotation to arrange a proper meeting between us.' What the heck is a lunar rotation?"

Steven snickered. "I think she means a month, Lars."

"She should just come out and say it! It's not like I remember anything about lunar cycles or continental shift or whatever's going on on this stupid planet."

"So? Are you gonna write back?"

"You make it sound like an actual letter," Lars mumbled, dropping the summons on his face and letting his breath stir it when he talked. "'My dear Blue Diamond, sorry, but I have to wash my hair all month. See you never, sincerely, Lars.'"

"Your hair isn't that long."

"Not really the point! Hngh." Lars waved the paper off his face to watch Steven complete the puzzle onscreen. "I don't think I have much choice here. Or with any of these 'diplomatic relations' the diamonds keep suggesting. I'm not interesting enough to be worth their time."

"They seem to think you are," Steven said. "Honestly, you know more about modern Homeworld culture than any of the rest of us. They probably appreciate having someone like that on our side."

"I guess. But with the way they're tossing me around planet to planet like I'm some kinda photo-op status symbol? I'm starting to feel like a freaking pe-"

Pearl looked up from the kitchen when he started to say her name. Lars had forgotten she was organizing the kitchen after Lars and Steven's cooking attempts. (Lars had insisted that he was too rusty for any of his food to be edible and been proven correct. They'd cleaned but apparently not up to Pearl's standards.)

The air between them was awkward as all get-out.

"PEARL ahah hey, uh," he finished his sentence lamely. "...Sorry."

"Don't be," Pearl said wryly as she wrung out a dishcloth. "Believe it or not, I know how it feels to be treated like a Pearl."

"None of the rest of us do, though," Steven said obliviously, eyes still on the game. "See? Valuable diplomatic experience."

Lars and Pearl were still staring at each other. Lars kinda wanted to curl up and poof back to his tree.

"...'s not really like that," he muttered eventually. "I was exaggerating. I don't have it nearly as bad as a pearl would."

Steven made a questioning noise. Pearl conspicuously turned back to finish dishes.

"Just, like." He didn't know how to explain this properly, especially since Pearl was right there. "I get a choice about it."

"Yeah! And what are you choosing?" Lars had no idea if Steven was playing dumb to dissolve the tension or genuinely was too wrapped up in the game to notice it.

"Well… I wanna meet her. Blue Diamond seems cool. For an interplanetary warlord, I mean."

Steven finished the dungeon he'd been trapped in. The console played a triumphant tune. "She is! I bet she wants to talk about Pink Diamond with you."

"So hooray, I'm almost part of the diamond clique?"

"Something like that." Steven turned to Lars with a bright smile. "Hey, I wonder if you'll cry!"

"What?"


	27. Chapter 27

Lars leaned out his balcony, pink hands dangling to the ground so many stories beneath him. A sea of blue stretched out directly beneath him, the color contrast transitioning as it spread into a multicolor mass. The crowd wasn't as big as last time, but this event still had celebrities that would draw more gems than the few most interested in current events.

This time around, Lars decided, he was glad to have such a good view. For about the hundredth time, he mentally thanked Blue Diamond for the spacious accommodations. He was even gladder that he'd managed to squirm his way out of speaking onscreen today, leaving the encouraging speeches to Steven as usual.

"I am pleased to announce," Steven said from every screen and flat surface within sight, "The next step toward Homeworld and Earth's combined goal of peaceful integration and alliance. For thousands of years, kidnapped humans and their descendants have been locked in an enclosure, for their own protection but without their consent, before peace talks between our planets took place.

"The Crystal Gems and your Diamonds have worked together to create a rehabilitation program for these humans. If the captive humans choose, they can leave their enclosure to live in a communal center on Earth, where they will be gradually introduced to modern Earth cultures and given freedom and resources to safety explore the planet. For those who choose to stay with the gems, avenues of communication have been opened up so that they can learn more about Homeworld as well, and a Center branch will be made here on Homeworld for the humans who are most comfortable learning to live among gems."

Lars laughed to himself, remembering the drawn-out "diplomatic bargaining" over the naming rights for the new center. Somehow he'd been the voice of reason in that long conversation, which had started nearly the same month he'd first met Blue Diamond and been dubbed, between sobs, "something she would have loved." (Working at the Big Donut had unexpectedly prepared him for a career in politics: if you've handled enough weird and sadistic tourist customers, you're prepared for the worst temper tantrum or sob fest a planetary leader can throw at you.)

Blue Diamond had been singlemindedly insistent on naming the refuge after her dear departed Pink Diamond. Yellow Diamond was reluctantly supportive of Blue Diamond's wishes.

Meanwhile, the Crystal Gems all blindly refused any naming option besides one to honor Rose Quartz herself, which for obvious reasons didn't go smoothly with the diamonds. Time didn't heal all wounds.

So somehow they were receptive to Lars's offhanded joking suggestion of a compromise, to "fit" the other center's name. No one but Steven particularly wanted that name, but they all agreed it was the best option out of the few given. And no matter who you were, it was hard to talk Steven out of an idea once he'd latched onto it.

The onscreen Steven beamed. "That's why I'm so pleased to announce the grand opening of the **Lion** **Memorial** Rehabilitation and Refuge Center!

"I myself will be the director of the Earth's Refuge Center, while your own immigrant citizen Lars Barriga will head the Homeworld branch, generously donated by Blue Diamond. A number of educational outreach programs which the Barriga Memorial Interstellar Refugee Center has offered to emigrating gems will now be offered on Homeworld as well, as recordings viewable to the public at Homeworld's Refuge Center branch." Steven gestured to a wall of videos behind him. Many of them showed Stevonnie, while others were speeches led by single members of the Crystal Gems. They even had a clip from Lars's brief stint as a guest speaker, where he'd gotten such stage fright that he'd decided once and for all to work behind the scenes-apparently something in his speech had been salvageable.

A bright light suddenly bathed Lars in a halo. He squinted up, realizing he was all at once being spotlighted and broadcast.

"Feel free to contact your ambassador Lars Barriga or myself if you want to learn more about our outreach efforts, or how best to communicate with the humans in your life. Because if you don't know any humans yet but you're willing to meet some, I assure you, you will have the chance very soon." Steven continued. Lars pulled himself together just long enough to wave to the crowd, which was easier than he would have thought, since he was blinded by a spotlight the whole time.

Thankfully, the light dimmed around him quickly. Lars rubbed his eyes, retreating from the edge of the balcony to listen as Steven finished his speech.

Official Earth ambassador to Homeworld. How the heck did someone like him get this position?

But, he thought as he smiled down at the crowd of gems below, it was certainly making life better-for him, but for other gems and people too. He didn't think he was capable of changing others' lives this much.

It was easy to take shelter from the bad stuff. Run and fight and hide, day in and day out. Eventually escape to a safe place like Earth. But somehow, Steven and Lars together had done something impossible for either of them to do alone. Somehow they'd taken a history of Homeworld-Earth war and hate and created something new out of it, Lars marveled to himself as he sat back in his couch at the newly-christened Lion Memorial Center.

They took a place of hostility and made it a refuge. They took battlefields and forgotten Kindergartens, places of death, and brought them back to life just like Steven had done for Lars all those years ago.

Maybe, Lars thought as he watched Steven's projected face dim and fade onscreen as the gems below begin to disperse, I'm finally starting to be somebody who deserved it.


End file.
